THE INTERVENTION DEBATE: TOWARDS

A POSTURE OF PRINCIPLED JUDGMENT

John Garofano

January 2002

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The views expressed in this report are those of the author and do notnecessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of theArmy, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. This reportis cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.

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The author would like to thank the Smith Richardson Foundationfor its generous support; and Ivan Arreguin-Toft, David Edelstein,Steven Metz, and Douglas Stuart for comments on earlier drafts.

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ISBN 1-58487-081-8

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FOREWORD

Deciding when and how to use force is one of the central

elements of strategy. Throughout American history, debate has

raged over whether force is appropriate only in defense of the

homeland and vital national interests or whether it should also be

used to promote more expansive objectives like regional security

and stopping humanitarian disasters in regions with few tangible

U.S. interests.

The 1990s showed the extremes of this issue. In the George H.

Bush administration, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger

and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell both

advocated restrictive conditions for the use of force, with tangible

interests at stake, clear support from the American people and

Congress, and an explicit exit strategy. In the Clinton

administration, officials such as National Security Advisor

Anthony Lake and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright

supported a more expansive use of force in places like the

Balkans. Eventually the Clinton administration settled upon a

complex set of requirements that tried to bridge many

approaches, but it, too, failed to gain wide acceptance among the

polity or the public at large. Today, the debate still rages.

The author of this monograph, Dr. John Garofano, Senior

Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, argues that

American policymakers must take an approach based on

“principled judgment” when deciding on the use of force. He

concludes with a discussion of Army roles and requirements for

future contingencies.

The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer this study to

help Army leaders provide effective advice to national

policymakers when the use of force is being considered.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

JOHN GAROFANO is Senior Fellow at the InternationalSecurity Program, Kennedy School of Government,Harvard University, while working on a book oncivil-military relations and U.S. decisions on the use offorce. His areas of publication include military intervention,ASEAN and Asian security issues, and the making of U.S.foreign policy. Dr. Garofano has taught at the U.S. ArmyWar College, Mount Holyoke and the Five Colleges, and theUniversity of Southern California, and was a member of theU.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute during1999-2000. He is a Founding Member of the Council onEmerging National Security Affairs (CENSA), a think tankdedicated coordinating the efforts of experts from all fieldsrelating to national security and to mentoring the nextgeneration of national security leaders. Dr. Garofanoreceived his Ph.D. from Cornell University.

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SUMMARY

Political debate over the proper guidelines for using forcehas been polarized since the end of the Cold War. Forceconservers emphasize future threats and conventionalchallenges, while proponents of the liberal use of forceconsider a wider range of national interests and acceptgreater risk regarding future challenges. Administrationshave taken various paths between these two poles. TheWeinberger Doctrine remains one of the most influentialschools of thought. A contrary school of thought, that ofintuitive intervention, was articulated by Secretaries ofState George Shultz and Madeleine Albright but provedhighly problematic. The Clinton administration settledupon a complex set of requirements that tried to bridgemany approaches, but it, too, failed to gain wide acceptanceamong the polity or the public at large.

Without general political agreement upon a generalapproach to the use of force, the military services will behard put to develop the tools required when interventionoccurs. The author argues that what may be called thePowell-Bush argument is a useful starting point for forginga consensus, since it recognizes the need for flexibility,choice, and balance—in a word, judgment—when force isconsidered. After examining the advantages of this and theother postures adopted by previous administrations, theauthor makes the case for an approach of “principledjudgment.” A series of principles, or guideposts, forintervention policy are then suggested, followed by theargument for several institutional changes that shouldstrengthen the ability of diverse administrations to exercisejudgment when using force. The author concludes with adiscussion of Army roles and requirements for futurecontingencies.

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THE INTERVENTION DEBATE:TOWARDS A POSTURE

OF PRINCIPLED JUDGMENT

INTRODUCTION

The Continuing Debate.

Despite a decade with which to absorb and adapt to theimplications of the end of the Cold War, the United Stateshas not settled on a basic disposition towards the use offorce. A debate continues between two main camps, forceproponents and force conservers, defined by diverging viewson the costs, risks, and effectiveness of using U.S. militaryforce for traditional and emerging challenges. Realists andidealists, Democrats and Republicans can be found in eachof these two groups. The debate was temporarily submergedin the unity that emerged following the terrorist attacks ofSeptember 11, 2001. Yet by the end of that month, theadministration’s stand on the force-conserving side of thedebate was already shaping U.S. strategy by eschewingoperations that could lead to nation-building andhumanitarian operations. It is likely that the debate shallre-emerge as a central issue of contention as U.S. foreignpolicy returns to something resembling “normalcy.”

The two poles in the debate may be summarized asfollows. Force proponents consider military power merelythe first among equally valid instruments of national power,suitable for shaping the security environment as well as forresponding to direct challenges to important or vital U.S.interests. These active internationalists were generallysupportive of U.S. interventions in Bosnia, Rwanda, Haiti,Kosovo, and elsewhere. They believe America has a uniquerole in history as the sole superpower, and that it must useits power to stand up for its values as well as for a broadcontinuum of national interests.

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Force conservers, on the other hand, believe that recentadministrations have wasted precious resources onidealistic and perhaps politically-driven adventures. Suchactivities, argue these critics of the frequent use of force,weaken the country’s ability to defend against the threatsthat truly matter and will inevitably arise. Whereas forceproponents stress the long-term opportunities found incrises as well as the interconnectedness of vital, important,and humanitarian interests, force conservers echoSecretary of State John Quincy Adams’ admonition thatAmerica should “not go abroad in search of monsters todestroy.” Near-term threats to interests that are vitalrather than merely important or humanitarian, andmaintenance of the nation’s military readiness andeffectiveness against the potentially serious militarychallenges, inform the position of the force conservers. Theyusually opposed U.S. intervention in situations where wehad no clear vital interest at risk.

Each school holds related views on how force should beemployed once its use has been sanctioned. Activeinternationalists believe it is suitable in a variety ofsituations and may safely and rationally be meted out inmeasured doses, while force conservers prefer to use force inoverwhelming bursts. Activists have confidence thatlimited force can usefully serve diplomatic goals, butconservers doubt the utility of limited force for vaguepolitical ends.

A final, critical distinction between the two schools bearson the guidelines that should inform decisions on the use offorce. Active internationalists resist laying out maps orplans that would carefully guide when force is to be used andhow. Force conservers prefer clear and strict criteria andlike to refer to the Weinberger and Powell doctrines,discussed below, as examples par excellence of guidelines forpolicy.1

The oppositional nature of this debate adversely affectsU.S. foreign policy. Strategy lurches from one side to the

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other, the product of elections, temporary political clout,and the winds of executive-legislative relations. Thissatisfies neither camp; heightens rather than lowers theshrillness of the debate; sends mixed signals to allies,potential enemies, and to instigators of local violence; andplaces great strain on the most frequently used foreignpolicy instrument—the military. In addition, lack ofagreement on the purpose of military power leads to missedopportunities as well as to thinly supported operations,such as that in Somalia. When an intervention is the resultof a tenuous political compromise, strategy and resourcesfor the mission may also be compromised, potentiallyleading to unexpected casualties and rapid withdrawal.

This antithetical yet unresolved debate also has seriousimplications for military innovation and adaptation.Without some clear sense of where the nation is likely tosend it, the military will resist risky, expensive, and painfulchanges in hardware, doctrine, and organization. Politicaluncertainty makes innovation a risky strategy fororganizations and for leaders of those organizations.

For the Army, the strategic review undertaken by theSecretary of Defense makes a resolution of the interventiondebate even more imperative. Initial reportage indicatesthat there will be a renewed emphasis on long-rangeweapons and indeed long-range, remote approaches to theuse of force. Yet although strategic priorities are a vital andwelcome development, policymakers, as I argue below, willcontinue to be buffeted by unexpected situations andsubjected to unanticipated motivations to use force. Thisextends to the actual emplacement of troops on the ground.Basic agreement on how and when force will be used wouldassist the Army and all the services in adapting tointernational and national trends.

This monograph argues that there is common groundbetween the two schools of thought, and that this area canbe expanded. The common ground is found in the realm ofjudgment—the ability to discern and weigh the myriad

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factors bearing on complex international dilemmas whilefollowing some basic guidelines. In a world where newvalues, norms, and challenges confront the remainingsuperpower, no escape from judgment can legitimately besought in a clear and fixed blueprint for action, in a rejectionof all guidelines, or in a retreat from the gray areas of thenational interest. What will be described as thePowell-Bush argument—to be distinguished from thePowell Doctrine or other pre-set formulas—provides auseful starting point for expanding the area of agreement.Recommendations will then be made for improving thequality of this judgment in lasting ways.

Though unsatisfactory to ideologues, judgment is a moreuseful construct than strict criteria and full-fledgeddoctrines. Judgment acknowledges that all use-of-forcedecisions have unique characteristics, while doctrine andnarrow criteria are static and based on questionablegeneralizations. Judgment is based on principles ofpermanent relevance, including such basic facts as thestrain that peace operations place on the military and theneed for limited force options by policymakers anddiplomats. Frequently the activist approach ignores theseconstraints. Criteria and doctrine are usually politicallyloaded and of fleeting relevance, based on prior political orideological positions; judgment acknowledges thecontinuous evolution of the international securityenvironment.

Policymakers inevitably confront situations that are inmany ways new and frequently sui generis. Neitherunbridled activism nor strict criteria prepare themadequately for these tasks. Judgment allows for necessarydiscussions about the frequency with which force can beused, the matching of ends with required resources, and therisks associated with various responses, including inaction.Doctrine and strict criteria assume or posit certain valuesfor these factors and then avoid further debate, while theactivist approach pays little attention to costs.

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Presidents will enter office with various degrees ofexpertise and even interest in foreign affairs, and withadvisors and advisory systems of varying degrees ofeffectiveness. Domestic politics will always influenceforeign policy, frequently to its detriment. And as was seenmerely a decade ago but forgotten prior to September 11, thesecurity environment can change fundamentally andwithout warning. For these reasons, we should begin tothink about how to make decisions on using force regardlessof these inevitable limitations. This requires anagreed-upon posture of flexible, “principled judgment” andthe institutional support necessary for it.

The dichotomy in the current debate belies fourapproaches that administrations have adopted since theVietnam war. These are described and critically assessed inPart II. In Part III, the author sets forth several principlesthat should guide future decisions on the use of force.Finally, in Part IV he discusses possible methods forinstitutionalizing better judgment in complex decisions.

FOUR FRAMEWORKS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS

The Doctrinal Approach: Weinberger and RecentEchoes.

Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger provided thefirst well-defined programmatic description of when andhow the United States should use force in the post-Vietnamperiod. In a speech to the National Press Club on November28, 1984, he laid out six “tests” that should be met beforeU.S. forces are employed:

1. vital national interests must be at stake;

2. the United States and allies must be willing to commitsufficient forces to win;

3. there must be clearly defined political and militaryobjectives;

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4. forces must be sized to achieve these objectives;

5. there must be reasonable assurance of support by theAmerican people; and,

6. the use of U.S. force must be a “last resort.”2

Weinberger had two motivations for shaping the debate.First, he felt responsible for the lives of American troops,and was vehemently opposed to placing them, for example,in the “bull’s eye” of the Beirut airport. The October 23,1983, attack that killed 241 U.S. Marines in their barracksreinforced Weinberger’s belief about what happens when amilitary force is not sized to fight and win but only to act as abuffer between opposing armies. He viewed it as a misuse ofAmerican soldiers and a misunderstanding of the utility ofmilitary power.

Weinberger also sought to counter what he viewed as aState Department and National Security Council (NSC) tooeager to deploy U.S. forces abroad. As he explained in hismemoirs, these two institutions believed in the“intermixture of diplomacy and the military”:

Roughly translated, that meant that we should not hesitate to

put a battalion or so of American forces in various places in the

world where we desired to achieve particular objectives of

stability, or changes of government, or support of governments,

or whatever else. Their feeling seemed to be that an American

troop presence would add a desirable bit of pressure and

leverage to diplomatic efforts, and that we should be willing to

do that freely and virtually without hesitation. The NSC staff

was even more militant, with a number of its members seeming

to me, and to the Joint Chiefs, to spend most of their time

thinking up ever more wild adventures for our troops. . . . The

NSC staff’s eagerness to get us into a fight somewhere—

anywhere—coupled with their apparent lack of concern for the

safety of our troops and with no responsibility therefore,

reminded me of the old joke, “Let’s you and him fight this out.”3

Some 2 years later, Weinberger recognized that othergoals were inherent in a reasonable national securitystrategy (NSS). These included, in addition to the obvious

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vital interests of preserving the independence, institutions,and territorial integrity of the United States and its allies,the shaping of “an international order in which ourfreedoms and democratic institutions can survive andprosper.” Further, they included the promotion ofdemocratic institutions even where major reconstructionwas required, the maintenance of an open internationaleconomic system, and the creation of an alliance ofindustrial democracies joined with the United States.4 YetWeinberger and proponents of the doctrine clearly meant toexclude the frequent use of force as a preferred policyinstrument. They certainly did not consider the promotionof democracy or good behavior in small countries not vital toU.S. interests a valid reason for using America’s militarypower.

In part due to the Clinton administration’s record,Weinberger’s skepticism of active interventionism has beenmirrored in more recent calls for a set of clear and restrictivecriteria.5 Henry Kissinger opposed intervention in Bosnia inthe early 1990s on the grounds that it was not a vitalsecurity interest for the United States. In his 1994 book,Diplomacy, Kissinger called for criteria in order to avoidswings towards aimless interventionism; Americans’ beliefin their exceptional role can lead to the desire to “remedyevery wrong and stabilize every dislocation.” Alluding toJohn Quincy Adams, Kissinger notes, however, that it isjust as clear that “some monsters need to be, if not slain, atleast resisted. What is most needed are criteria forselectivity.”

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John Hillen claims that because it did not develop thecriteria purportedly called for by Kissinger, the Clintonadministration squandered resources on “a host of‘feel-good’ operations” such as those in Somalia, Haiti, andBosnia. Even in Europe, American policy is “determined bylocal factions in Bosnia,” with the United States “relegated...to the role of a medium-sized player in a peripheralEuropean security affair.” Hillen then asks for criteria thatmirror Weinberger’s.7

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Ambassador William Abshire, Director of the Center forthe Study of the Presidency and organizer of a transitionteam report, makes a similar argument. He hails thewisdom of President Dwight Eisenhower in purportedlylaying out a clear list of strict criteria that would have beennecessary for intervention in Indochina in 1954.Ambassador Abshire and others contend that this led to thewise decision not to use force at that time, and that this is auseful model for the future.8 Others echo this generalperspective.9

Assessing the Weinberger Doctrine. Despite indicationsof change, the Weinberger Doctrine retains broadlegitimacy and support in significant portions of the defensecommunity—and for good reason. Its author’s ultimaterationale was the protection of the nation’s capacityeffectively to deter and, if necessary, fight and win battlesthat threaten its very existence. To order soldiers to theirdeaths for less vital tasks is not “fully warranted”; otherinstruments of national power should be used instead.10

This combination of avoiding casualties for nonvital aimsand the need for a significant force in reserve continue toreverberate in a period in which U.S. military operationaltempo is at an all-time high for peacetime.

Yet agreeing upon useful criteria is much more difficultthan calling for them. Consider Vietnam. The war involvedguerrilla, conventional, international, and civil aspects. Thesuperpowers and major regional powers had stronginterests in the outcome, some of them possessed nuclearweapons, and all of them supplied their clients. Thebattleground was a developing country with minimalinfrastructure and characterized by multiple cultures,climates, terrain, and political identities.

Such complexities do not lend themselves readily tosimple criteria or checklists any more than they resembleconventional campaigns in a desert. It is not surprising,then, that, despite his call for criteria, Kissinger explainsU.S. mistakes in Vietnam not in terms of absent criteria but

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by noting policymakers’ inability to understand guerrillawar, their blind faith in a flawed “domino theory,” and theirattempts to create a South Vietnam in America’s image.11

None of these, it should be noted, could have been avoided orcorrected by the kinds of criteria that politicians and policyanalysts have offered: “Being smarter” is a difficultstandard, and one that cannot be called into being throughstipulation.

Similarly, in explaining nonintervention in Indochina in1954, Kissinger correctly focuses not on criteria but ratheron Eisenhower’s overriding belief that America’s uniqueimage of being a noncolonial great power was more valuablethan Indochina itself.12 To this we can add Eisenhower’svisceral opposition to placing ground troops on mainlandAsia, and his sensitivity to taking any initial steps thatwould, he was sure, lead the ultimate commitment. Ineffect, Eisenhower used criteria to justify to the Americanpublic his decision against intervention: criteria did notdetermine the wisdom of his decision.13

The lesson is that criteria should contribute to sortingout complex phenomena; they should not simplify reality tothe point where they cease to become aids todecisionmaking. Ultimately, they cannot replace insight,instinct, and judgment. To this end, Kissinger’s basicformulation of “criteria for selectivity” remains helpful.Unlike the Weinberger school’s focus on strict criteriadirectly translatable into action, criteria for selectivityallows for the kind of judgment and insight required bypolicymakers.

If matching criteria to complex and changingenvironments is the first problem with the WeinbergerDoctrine, a second is its reliance on the touchstone conceptof “vital national interests.” This concept garneredconsensus when international threats, rather thanconceptual efforts, delineated for policymakers theboundaries between vital and other interests. Weinberger’s1984 Report to Congress included in the category basic

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threats to the country’s freedom, the general deterrence ofSoviet attack, and the defense of “key forward theaters” inall regions.14 Few would have argued vehemently with thiscategorization.

Even at the height of the Cold War, however, it wasdifficult to know where the critical inner circle of “vital”interests ended and where the next concentric circle ofmerely “important” or otherwise significant interestsbegan. One can look to Southeast Asia or to Central Americafor examples in abundance during the Cold War.

Since the Cold War, there are more serious problemswith using the vital national interest construct as a guide topolicy. One is that the task of distinguishing vital fromless-than-vital interests has become even more difficult. Tomany, Bosnia matters to the United States because of itslocation, the atrocities, the ethnic groups involved there andin neighboring countries, the danger of spillover and ofNATO’s fragmentation, and the European Union’s earlierchoices. To others, the problem indicates that NATO shouldstay within its historical area of concern, avoiding theimbroglio of ethnic strife in forbidding terrain. And if thereis fundamental disagreement on the significance of ethniccleansing or genocide in southeastern Europe, there isunlikely to be agreement on any issue other than war on theKorean peninsula and possibly in the Persian Gulf. Askeptic might conclude that even NATO’s new memberswould do well to note that Article 5 of the NATO treaty callsonly for consultations on appropriate action in the event ofan attack on a member nation.

The doctrinal approach to such disagreement is to err onthe side of caution in the sense of retaining the ability tofight major wars later rather than securing questionableinterests now. Military force should play its “essential, butcircumscribed and necessarily limited, role” in foreignpolicy.15 Where the stakes are not clearly vital, leaderscannot depend upon public support, and the military isunlikely to receive clear orders and goals.

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Related to this general limitation is the extent to whichvital and near-term security threats are interwoven withless-than-vital and longer-term or merely potential threats.It could be argued that the very notion of a hierarchy ofnational interests—so central to the realpolitik outlook ofmost statesmen—depends on a logic that is now open toquestion. The realist architects of America’s containmentpolicy worried that weak states might bandwagon withcommunist powers, garner industrial and manpowerresources, and use these resources to conquer more territorythrough labor-intensive warfare. Today, statesmenlegitimately worry over refugee flows, capital flight,transnational crime, and the conditions in which politicalterrorism incubates. Any of these problems—which in andof themselves reside in the “important” or “humanitarian”categories—can spill over into the vital category under theright conditions. In other words, the importance and scopeof secondary interests have grown, and they are potentiallyconnected to vital interests in fundamentally new ways.

This raises the stakes for U.S. leadership in gray areaswhile requiring varied and innovative forms for thatleadership. A failure to take a stand against genocide wherewe have the ability to do so at low cost, for example, willundermine the moral legitimacy of our objections tooppressive political systems. The bombing of U.S.embassies abroad requires some response, too, but this isunlikely to include an overwhelming conventional militaryattack on a state.

A final issue related to the concept of vital nationalinterests is its limited utility as a guidepost for proactiveaction. The approach connotes present and foreseeablethreats rather than future potentialities. The Departmentof Defense’s (DoD) aim of shaping the security environmentthrough military-to-military exchanges, exercises, andrelated programs, recognizes that there are majoropportunities to be had by improving relations andpromoting transparency among friend and foe alike. Each of

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the unified combatant commands can reasonably claimsuccesses in this area.

A third major area of deficiency in the Weinbergerapproach is that its strict criteria downplay the role ofpresidential vision. Regarding Grenada, President RonaldReagan asked: “What kind of a country would we be . . . if werefused to help small but steadfast democratic countries inour neighborhood to defend themselves against the threat ofserious danger of being killed or taken hostage?”16 Apresident with a different vision would have acteddifferently or not at all. President George Bush had asimilar personal reaction and initiated the process that ledto intervention in Somalia.

Presidents are unlikely to condone or, if they do condonethem, adhere closely to, strict criteria. They will rely insteadon the vision and motivations that propelled them to seekelection and for which the public voted. Such motivations,and the kaleidoscopic makeup of “vision,” cannot bepigeonholed into strict criteria. If promulgated, they will beviolated. Weak criteria are bad criteria, for they will beviolated and will not be effective guides for policymakers orfor those who must execute the overridden criteria.

Many decisions to use force, then, have been madewithout the involvement of the public ahead of time. More tothe point, Weinberger’s “assured public support”stipulation is unreliable as a guide because the persistenceof such support depends to a large extent on choices that canbe made only after military involvement. This is discussedin more detail below, but two examples will be given here.Public support for U.S. involvement in Vietnam remainedstrong even after some 150,000 American casualties.17 Theproblem was a failing strategy, not public support ingeneral. Support was also initially high and then indifferentfor U.S. involvement in Somalia. A mistaken decision tocapture an unsavory but politically important warlord—amajor change in strategy in the summer of 1993—led to amajor congressional attack on U.S. policy. As discussed

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below, public support for humanitarian operations remainsmore than sufficient to support operations with clear,reasonable goals and an expectation of some success.

A fourth, more specific problem is the doctrine’scorrosive effect on strategically ambiguous policies.Strategic ambiguity plays a critical role in any country’sforeign policy. It is necessary due to limitations onresources: since we cannot be in all places at all times, itmakes sense not to announce ahead of time when and wherewe will react. As the Truman administration discoveredfollowing its public exclusion of the Republic of Korea fromthe U.S. security commitment, this will not only inviteunwelcome challenges, but may misrepresent the actualU.S. response in the event of a challenge.

Related to the ambiguity problem is the importance ofreputation: Is it productive to enshrine in a declareddoctrine a U.S. unwillingness to engage in limitedoperations where casualties will be small but significant?According to the “Ladenese epistle,” Osama bin Ladenconsidered the U.S. retreat from Lebanon strong evidencethat the United States did not have the stomach for battle.18

Furthermore, even a president, administration, orpublic may not know how they will react to a given challengeto important but nonvital national interests; thus strategicambiguity may accurately reflect internal ambiguity.President George Bush’s initial inclination to the Iraqiinvasion of Kuwait was to “wait and see.” Very quickly, thischanged to drawing a line in the sand. It is possible, too, thata strict-criteria interpretation of vital interests wouldcoincide with General Colin Powell’s early view in the Gulfcrisis that America’s vital interests were not threatened bySaddam Hussein’s gaining increased control over the priceof oil, and that Saudi Arabia could still be protected.

Fifth, adherence to Weinberger’s criteria ignores theubiquitous role of hedging against unforeseeable risks inforeign policymaking. A nation with global interests mustremain engaged and will always be overstretched if one

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measures elasticity in terms of where the country would besuccessful if the global environment disintegrated rapidly.Yet the task of statesmen is to balance risks, make the mostof available resources, and plan prudently for the future. Indoing so, they may rationally, though unintentionally,become engaged in foreign policy swamps while seeking toprevent a wider, more costly conflagration.19

This, rather than a violation of some preferred notion ofstrict criteria, explains U.S. involvement in Bosnia. TheU.S. guarantee of safe passage for redeploying Europeantroops was necessary to secure the continent’s involvement.This was important not only for Bosnia, but for the broadlyaccepted U.S. national interest of promoting a Europeansecurity identity. Later, the implications of this guaranteemeant that U.S. troops would be on the ground if theWestern position in Bosnia disintegrated. Since U.S.combat troops would be on the ground in any case, their rolewas expanded to become part of a larger politicalframework.20

A final set of criticisms revolves around the question ofhow force should be used. The issue here is whether theWeinberger Doctrine is essentially a foreign policy or adefense policy. Weinberger’s second, third, and fourthpoints (win, have clear goals, send sufficient forces) severelycircumscribe both the use of limited force and the use ofgreater amounts of force for limited objectives. Hisdefinition of “winning” is particularly constraining. Railingagainst the Vietnam experience, he focused on the type ofgoals that are clearly achievable through conventionalmilitary means.

Many contemporary threats are not conducive to the “nomore Vietnams” perspective, however. Allowing a likelyenemy to develop a chemical or biological capability couldeventually preclude the effective lodgment of American orallied troops at a point of entry, or the enemy could killenough troops to have devastating effects on public support.Preventing or defeating such threats may require a forceful,

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though not overwhelming or decisive, U.S. attack. In thisscenario, saving the military only for major wars may makefighting a major war more costly in the long run. Moreover,one of the major explanations for the pervasiveness oflimited war in the 20th century is the danger of escalation.The United States did not fail in Vietnam because it did notknow how to win, but because a winning strategy mighthave provoked a larger war, perhaps even a spiral toward athermonuclear exchange. As more states acquire nuclearweapons in coming decades, decisive force will be ever moredangerous. Military force must serve policy, and policyrequires more options than those offered by the WeinbergerDoctrine.

The doctrine also raises the issues of the analytical leveland time period for which a political objective is defined.Strict criteria tend to validate only those operations that aresure to achieve a concrete objective in the near term. Forexample, Weinberger was unhappy with the deployment ofMarines to Lebanon because their military mission wasunclear and the political aims fuzzy and unattainable.Powell says he held a similar view. 21

Secretary of State George Shultz and the NSC, on theother hand, believed U.S. support for the MultinationalForce in Lebanon was a valid use of American power andprestige for critical national security goals.

Success would have been of immense strategic value to us. A

stable Lebanon could be a bridge country in the Middle East; a

Lebanon dominated by Syria and the Soviet Union would

contribute to tension and constitute a site for threats against

Israel. Lebanon had taken the brunt of turmoil from Middle

East problems. Peace in Lebanon could contribute to peace

elsewhere.22

Failure resulted from a variety of tactical maneuversand mistakes by Israeli political and military leaders, U.S.decisionmakers, and short-sighted terrorists, in this view.23

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Leaving aside the possibility that Shultz was guilty ofwishful thinking, he had the clear political objective offurthering peace in a leap-frogging way, of using a presentcrisis to change dramatically the picture of the Middle Eastin 5 or 10 years’ time. His conceptual level of analysis wasregional stability and, beyond that, the balance ofsuperpower influence in a pivotal region. Shultz could not,however, identify the more operational and short-termpolitical objectives that Weinberger demanded. ForWeinberger and the strict criteria school, having clearpolitical goals really means having goals that are achievablein the near term and explicable in limited geographical,even territorial, terms. They doubt that smalldemonstrations of force will have larger payoffs in the realmof intangibles such as prestige and leadership.

This perspective is unacceptable from the Clausewitzianperspective that war should serve policy, and that the onlytrue point of view from which to observe internationalchallenges, as Clausewitz put it, is provided by the politicalrealm.24 Force does not serve policy only when it is used inan overwhelming way, or when casualties are below acertain level—although these qualifications are completelyunderstandable from the warfighter’s perspective. Injectinginto political deliberations the potential costs of ignoringbasic principles of warfare is also legitimate. But it cannotdetermine policy or the foreign policy goals that will besought after in the first place.

Finally, there is the quandary of using force only as a lastresort. The strict criteria school holds that U.S. lives shouldnot be risked unless absolutely necessary, and the nation’smilitary power as a whole should be conserved for more vitalchallenges. There are two problems with this approach.One, offered by Shultz and later seconded by Bush, is thatholding force as a final policy option makes it more likelythat force will eventually be necessary: the early use of forcemay head off bigger problems down the road.

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Thus U.S. demonstrations of power may have saved thedemocratic movement in the Philippines during theMarcos-Aquino transition, for example. By contrast, theirabsence, as in Europe in the 1930s, Korea in early 1950s, orBosnia in 1993-95, may prove more costly by orders ofmagnitude than would have an earlier use of force.25 “[T]hecapability and will to use force as a first resort,” RichardNixon wrote, “reduces the possibility of having to use forceas a last resort when the risk of casualties would be fargreater.”26 Furthermore, the instinct to rely first onnonmilitary options may “almost certainly cede the initialmilitary initiative and advantage to the enemy,” in thewords of the Army After Next Project.27

Recent critiques of the Clinton administration’s 1998bombings of Sudan and Afghanistan are germane. Far fromdemonstrating our will to root out terrorism, they may havedemonstrated the administration’s unwillingness to acceptany casualties in that fight.

The second problem with the last resort clause is thatwhen presidents consider using the instruments of nationalpower, they appear not to do so in sequential terms, withdiplomacy at the beginning and force at the end of a chain ofpossibilities. Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson,Reagan, and Bush considered force an early and properresponse to problems in Lebanon, the Congo, the DominicanRepublic, Grenada, and Panama. President Carter, andperhaps Johnson on Vietnam, are the exceptions, avoidinghigher levels of force in Desert One and in Vietnam untilthey became so costly as to be nearly irrelevant. Using forceearly may simply be the most effective response to a threat,turning that threat into an opportunity.

More importantly, this appears to reflect presidents’thinking. The system within which such decisions are made,therefore, would do well to respect this common presidentialattribute.

In sum, the Weinberger Doctrine is instructive in thelessons of using adequate power to accomplish one’s aims

17

and against needlessly risking life and reputation. Theremaining propositions, however, require that one acceptthe doctrine’s foundation that force should only be used forvital national interests—indeed, that that category remainsuseful for policymakers. If one questions this assumption,which seems reasonable in the contemporary securityenvironment, then one must also question the doctrine’spillars of overwhelming force defined in military terms, lastresort, and assured public support.

The Shultz-Albright Approach: IntuitiveInterventionism.

Shultz made the landmark case for the relativelyfrequent use of limited force for important foreign policygoals. In a well-known speech of October 25, 1984, helamented America’s “Hamlet problem” and claimed that thecountry was “worrying endlessly over whether and how torespond” to the growing problem of terrorism. “A greatnation with global responsibilities cannot afford to behamstrung by confusion and indecisiveness,” and must gobeyond defensive measures to consider means of “activeprevention, preemption, and retaliation,” argued Schultz.Furthermore, the American public “must understand beforethe fact that occasions will come when their governmentmust act before each and every fact is known—and thedecisions cannot be tied to the opinion polls.” Shultz felt thatduly elected officials had the right and responsibility tomake such decisions.28

He sought to decrease the influence of the Pentagon ingeneral and of Weinberger in particular. In Shultz’s view,they held an irrational and narrow preference fornonmilitary options to the detriment of diplomacy andbroader foreign policy goals. He believed this led to stallingeven, for example, when the bombing of the Marinebarracks required reinforcements, and when the Presidentexpressed his desire to intervene in Grenada.29

18

Shultz was convinced that the evolving war againstterrorism in particular demanded action. He recalled:

To Weinberger, as I heard him, our forces were to be constantly

built up but not used: everything in our defense structure

seemed geared exclusively to deter World War III against the

Soviets; diplomacy was to solve all the other problems we faced

around the world. . . . Only if and when the population, by some

open measure, agreed in advance would American armed

forces be employed, and even then, only if we were assured of

winning swiftly and at minimal cost. This was the Vietnam

syndrome in spades, carried to an absurd level, and a complete

abdication of the duties of leadership.30

Throughout his term in office and long after it,31 Shultzstressed the need to interweave diplomacy and force in awide range of situations. “We have to be strong, and, morethan that, we have to be willing to use our strength” in whathe labeled the “gray area challenges.” “We are participantsand we are engaged”; the United States is “not just anonlooker.” To ignore new challenges would be “absurd.”32

The “essence of statesmanship” is “to see a danger when it isnot self-evident; to educate our people to the stakesinvolved; then to fashion a sensible response and rallysupport.” All of this requires “prudent, limited,proportionate uses of our military power” in a variety ofsituations ranging from responses to terrorism topeacekeeping and traditional power projection.33

These words are reminiscent of Albright’s later askingChairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) General ColinPowell, “What’s the point of having this superb military thatwe’re always talking about if we can’t use it?” and of herstating: “If we have to use force, it is because we areAmerica. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall.We see further into the future.”34 Indeed, the manySecretaries of State from both parties who were activeinterventionists—Dean Acheson, John Foster Dulles, DeanRusk, and Kissinger, in addition to Shultz andAlbright—indicate that this perspective is found in bothpolitical parties and among individuals who might identify

19

themselves primarily as either realists or idealists. There isalso ample resonance in the public debate.35

Assessing Intuitive Interventionism. Shultz’s version ofactive interventionism has much to commend it. It providesthe president a full panoply of the instruments of nationalpower while offering multiple responses to unanticipatedinternational crises. It allows an administration to usemilitary force, a potentially decisive and usually the mostpotent instrument of national power to take advantage ofnew foreign policy opportunities. The absence of clearcriteria for action may allow a president to pick and chooseadvice and advisors, or to rely on his own views when hedeems it necessary. This could stimulate creativepolicymaking, allowing for new solutions to unanticipatedproblems.

At the same time, as a guide for using force there arepotentially fatal flaws in this approach. First, there is thedanger of excessive presidential latitude. For example,President Bush explained his decision to intervene inSomalia by stating that after weeks of watching starvingchildren on television he “just couldn’t take it any more.” Hetherefore called in General Powell, asked what wasnecessary to do the job, and gave the order. Powell’sreluctance held little sway.36 Thus commenced animmediate problem for an incoming administration and along chapter in post-Cold War humanitarian interventions.Similarly, the timing of President Clinton’s Desert Foxcampaign and the missile attacks on Afghani and Sudanesetargets may have been diversions from domesticproblems.37 One could further point to both the Bay of Pigsdebacle and the early Clinton administration experience inSomalia to demonstrate how inexperienced nationalsecurity teams can make serious mistakes.38 And Reagan’sdecision to use force in Grenada, it should be added, allowedinsufficient time for planning.

Second, as an attitude towards policymaking thisapproach surrenders the initiative to the enemy. Without

20

strong guiding principles or criteria, America would run therisk of responding to terrorism or genocide around the globe.Furthermore, mobilizing an unwieldy political systembehind a discrete policy of responding to terrorism, asShultz wanted, is difficult. Once the system moves in acertain direction, in motion inertia can take over at theexpense of the need to make subtle choices.

A related problem concerns the scope of responses. Manyforms of force might be used against terrorists. Advances incounterterror capabilities will only expand the potentialtarget list as we learn more about the perpetrators of pastterrorist acts, the planners of future ones, and themanufacturers of biological, nuclear, or missile capabilities.Domestic politics will inevitably lend further pressure foraction. The Clinton administration felt pressure to respondto the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania,and this pressure probably contributed to hasty decisions toretaliate.39 Requisite though action may be, the activistapproach does not suggest limits to the scope of theseresponses.

A third major drawback is that this approach is likely toengender precisely the kinds of internal dynamics thatShultz himself decried—palace politics and bureaucraticinfighting that ignore strategic planning. Competition forthe president’s ear is always part of the policymakingprocess, but, in the absence of use-of-force guidelines, it willbe even more strident as advisors attempt to gain thepresident’s support for any of a variety of options that he orshe has not ruled out. This may lead to the kind of hostilerelationships that existed between Secretary of State CyrusVance and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinskiduring the Carter administration. These arecounterproductive to the healthy airing of options and to theconsensus building on complex problems.

A fourth shortcoming is the increased influence ofintuitive but unexamined feelings of competence that canarise alongside fear in the face of new, unfamiliar global

21

developments. The historian John Lewis Gaddis hasexplained how swings in vague beliefs about nationalcapabilities determined the general outlines of Democraticand Republican foreign policies during the Cold War. Thisphenomenon of capabilities driving policy and determininginterests may explain why the Eisenhower and Kennedyadministrations declined to intervene massively inIndochina, for example, whereas the Johnsonadministration took up that challenge. The latter believedthat its nation-building, counterinsurgency, andconventional capabilities had increased sufficiently to earnan American victory.40

This should be a concern today for at least two reasons.The U.S. military has dramatically increased its ability toconduct peace operations. Unfortunately, successescontributed to the expansive goals of the early Clintonadministration. In a related way, the impact ofprecision-guided weapons on policymakers has beenundeniable. Belief in their efficacy shaped planning for thewar against Kosovo. Yet it also precluded consideration atthe highest levels of a ground option, and delayed necessarymilitary planning for ground operations among allies.41

Similarly, our ability to contain Saddam through a quietprecision war has meant that any change in the dualcontainment policy would require a major change in outlookand most likely a new administration.42

A final, serious problem with the activist school is theirreticence on the issue of how force should be used—in whatproportion to the problem or according to what generalprinciples. In the absence of these standards, there are twodangers. One is that force will be unsuccessful, due to a lackof care for or understanding of the uses and limits of militaryforce by central decisionmakers. The other is that force willbe successful, or intermittently so, but in any case will incursignificant casualties because the costs and risks of successand failure were not part of the initial calculation. Defeat ordisaster harms the reputation of the United States, while

22

pyrrhic victories obviously harm the military services andmay poison civil-military relations.

By implication, the type and level of force used should becommensurate with the problem, as judged by some group ofpolicymakers. This, too, causes discomfort to force-conservers and to the military, for it leaves open thepossibility of death by a thousand cuts, or by more blunttrauma such as the misguided entry into major conflicts. Asexamples of the former, critics point to the overstretchednature of military forces today, and for the latter, to thesupposedly gradual escalation during the Vietnam War.This problem persists, as will be clear from the discussionbelow of the Clinton “sliding-scale” approach to the use offorce.

These potentially serious pitfalls need not result in badpolicy. Shultz, for example, was mindful of the basicrequirements for the effective use of force. His “Plan ofAction” on Grenada consisted of 10 major initiativescovering the legal, political, diplomatic, public relations,and military fronts. Notably, they also included plans forthe transition to civilian power and for the withdrawal ofU.S. forces, worked out in advance between the StateDepartment and the Joint Chiefs.43

Unfortunately, not all duly elected or appointed officialswill have the foresight and impetus to execute suchplanning. Nor, to the extent the initiative is surrendered tothe enemy, will they have the time and resources to do so:the development of Operation JUST CAUSE allowed timeto plan, for example, while Operation URGENT FURY didnot. In these situations it would help to have some basicprinciples limiting when and how force will be used.Furthermore, while Shultz was focused primarily on theterrorist threat, today American power confronts a widerange of issues, which make the problem of relevantguidelines all the more complicated. Yet thus far, activeinterventionists have not put forth such guidelines. TheClinton period provides a case study.

23

Unsatisfactory Compromise: Criteria Overload andthe Proliferation of Interests during the ClintonYears.

Confronted with a wave of humanitarian suffering andethnic conflict around the globe, the Clinton administrationstruggled to find its way on intervention policy. During the1992 presidential campaign, Clinton stated the need to takea more active role in Bosnia, where the Bush administrationhad studiously avoided military involvement.44 After theelection, National Security Advisor Anthony Lake seemedto set the conceptual tone of future policy by describinghimself as a realistic idealist who, like President WoodrowWilson, was willing to use force to back up principle. InSeptember 1992, Les Aspin, Clinton’s first Secretary ofDefense, argued publicly that military force had animportant role in broader foreign policy. He defended theuse of force for limited objectives, asserted that limited warcould be properly controlled, and claimed that extricationfrom limited operations was not nearly so difficult as frommajor wars. Aspin focused on the value of precision-guidedmunitions in carrying out limited operations with minimalthreats to U.S. forces and to collateral entities.45

Yet initially the administration was wary and somewhatdivided on the issue of loosening the strictures on the use offorce that had accreted during the previous decade.Secretary of State Warren Christopher stated in April 1993that any use of force would require clear objectives, a goodchance of success, a strong likelihood of public orcongressional support, and a clear exit strategy.Then-Ambassador to the United Nations (U.N.) MadeleineAlbright argued that U.S. support for U.N. operations waspredicated upon there being a real threat to internationalpeace and security, clearly defined objectives and scope, acease-fire in place, agreement among warring parties to aninternational presence, adequate financial resources, andan “end-point” to U.N. participation. President Clintonreiterated to the U.N. this general hesitancy to use force.46

Yet later Secretary of State Albright would be pressing

24

CJCS Powell to do something with the vast military powerat his disposal, and would remain an active proponent ofusing force.47

This public schizophrenia, together with the crises andharsh criticism over the administration’s handling ofBosnia, Somalia, and Haiti, led to a major review of officialpolicy on U.S. participation in peace and humanitarianoperations. Begun in early 1993, Presidential DecisionDirective (PDD) 25 was not signed until May 1994. By thenit included a list of eight factors to be considered before theUnited States would vote positively for a U.N. peaceoperation, 14 if the United States were to participate, and17 if U.S. troops were likely to encounter combat.

The factors that would cause a favorable U.S. vote on theSecurity Council for a peace operation included many ofthose previously mentioned by Albright and the presidentat the U.N.: the advancement of U.S. interests, andinternational concern for dealing with the problem on amultilateral basis; a clear threat to or breach ofinternational peace through aggression, humanitariandisaster coupled with violence, or the “[s]udden interruptionof established democracy or gross violation of human rightscoupled with violence, or [the] threat of violence”; clearobjectives and an understanding of the nature of themission (i.e., whether it is a Chapter VI peacekeeping or aChapter VII peace enforcement action); a cease-fire ifChapter VI, or a significant threat to international peaceand security if Chapter VII; the availability of military andfinancial resources, and a mandate clear enough toaccomplish the mission; evidence that the internationalcommunity has weighed and judged as unacceptable thepolitical, economic, and humanitarian consequences ofinaction; and the judgment that the anticipated duration ofthe conflict is tied to clear objectives and realistic criteria forending the operation.

The “even stricter” standards applied to cases where theUnited States would be asked to participate include

25

whether participation would advance U.S. interests, andwhether the risks to American personnel have beenweighed and considered acceptable; resources are available;U.S. participation is necessary for the operation’s success;the role of U.S. forces is tied to clear objectives and anendpoint (undefined) can be identified; domestic supportexists or can be gotten; and command and controlarrangements are acceptable.

Finally, the “even more rigorous factors” applied in caseswhere U.S. forces might confront combat include ensuringthat there exists a determination to commit sufficient forcesto achieve clearly defined objectives; there exists a plan toachieve those objectives “decisively”; and there is acommitment to reassess and adjust as necessary.48

Secretary of Defense William Perry offered his own list ofcriteria in his 1995 Report to the President and theCongress. He said that before intervention theadministration would consider, among other issues,existing treaty commitments; the willingness of othernations to contribute to an operation; whether unilateralU.S. action is justified; the clarity of military objectivessupporting political objectives; judgments about costs andduration; likely public and congressional support; thewillingness to commit sufficient forces to achieve objectives;and the acceptability of proposed arrangements forcommand and control of U.S. forces.49

Assessing the Clinton Administration Approach. Afterinitially stumbling, the Clinton approach settled on aplethora of criteria. Yet the result was that it was less of aguide than those offered by Weinberger. The PDD 25laundry list goes far beyond the Weinberger Doctrine in itsoverall breadth and in its specific requirements (including,for example, decisive victory). However, in effect these areless constraining and less helpful because they are merely“standards” or “factors to be applied” rather than a set ofinterrelated criteria which together form a doctrine or evena general philosophical approach.

26

Further, the relative weight of each factor is left to theimagination. As a result, it is not clear what role each factoror combination of factors ought to play in a given decision onthe use of force. The Clinton administration decided againstusing force to stop the conflict in Rwanda in 1994 but infavor of a major peacekeeping operation in Bosnia at the endof 1995. Later Clinton stated that he would intervene ifanother Rwanda-scale atrocity occurred. Clinton alternatedbetween a hard and soft line on North Korea in 1995-96, andmade carefully calibrated military moves in the TaiwanStrait in March of 1996. He agreed to an air war to stopethnic cleansing in Kosovo but did not embrace groundoperations that would have been more effective. Thesechoices were not all bad; inconsistency does not equate withconfusion. The appearance of inconsistency and the lack ofan anchor, however, have serious domestic andinternational impact. In short, it was not clear to theaverage observer whether and which of the many criteriawere followed, or why.

A second major problem was that the greater number ofcriteria had to compete with expanding conceptions of thenational interest. The Clinton administration’s official NSSdocuments did not clarify the issue. These claim thatdecisions on the use of force are dictated by nationalinterests, but that vital, important, humanitarian, andother interests all may require the use of force. Since at least1994 the administration has sided with the Powell-Bushview that it “is unwise to specify in advance all thelimitations we will place on our use of force,” that “the costsand risks of U.S. military involvement must be judged to becommensurate with the stakes involved,” and that a seriesof questions would be answered before force is used: “Havewe explored or exhausted nonmilitary means that offer areasonable chance of achieving our goals? Is there a clearlydefined, achievable mission? What level of effort will beneeded to achieve our goals? What are the potentialcosts—human and financial—of the operation? What arethe opportunity costs in terms of maintaining our capability

27

to respond to higher-priority contingencies? Do we havemilestones and a desired end state to guide a decision onterminating the mission?” Regarding how force will be used,NSS 99 states that U.S. forces will be given clear missionsand the means to achieve their objectives decisively, andthat allied assistance will be sought when practicable.50

The main problem with this apparently reasonableapproach is that the administration continuously increasedthe breadth of national security interests that it consideredimportant. By 1999 these included ethnic conflict; a widerange of humanitarian issues; the sexual, military, andlabor exploitation of minors; trafficking in women andchildren; and involuntary servitude.51

Statements by administration officials also contradicteddocuments such as PDD 25 and NSS 99. In 1996, forexample, Lake offered an extensive list of circumstancesthat may require the use of force. These included,apparently in order of descending importance, directattacks on the United States, its citizens, and its allies;direct aggression; threats to key economic interests; thepreservation, promotion, and defense of democracy; thespread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), terrorism,international crime, and drug trafficking; the maintenanceof U.S. credibility; and humanitarian disasters.52 Theconditions under which these would trigger military actionremained unspecified. “But the greater the number andweight of the interests in play, the greater the likelihoodthat we will use force—once all peaceful means have beentried and failed, and once we have measured a mission’sbenefits against its costs, in both human and financialterms.”53

The Clinton administration partially fleshed out acase-by-case approach to using force with a plethora ofconcerns and questions. Yet as an actual guide to decisions,the sheer volume and expansiveness of interests and factorswere self-defeating, overburdening the administration’scapacity to weigh and judge.

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Furthermore, unlike in the Weinberger approach, therewas neither a predisposition towards overwhelming forcenor skepticism of limited force. On the contrary, the Clintonapproach to how force will be used—what may best bedescribed as a “sliding scale” approach—makes the overalldecision even more complex. This was explained by Perry in1995 when he argued for the “rule of commensurate militaryforce.” He saw few “first category” threats to U.S. nationalinterests after the Cold War. When the interests are notvital, the threats will not be clear-cut, but “we must bewilling to consider the use of force commensurate with ourinterests.” Thus “our use of force must be selected andlimited, reflecting the relative importance of the outcome toour interests.” This occurred, in his view, in the Clintonadministration’s decision to use military force to restoreorder in Haiti. Initially, U.S. interests were not challengedstarkly. Thus the administration used economic anddiplomatic leverage. Eventually our interests became moreseriously engaged and threatened, Perry explained. Thethreat of force worked at the eleventh hour, but Americantroops arrived nonetheless and were critical to the success ofthe policy.54

Perry contrasted the use of force in Haiti with theadministration’s initial decision not to use force in Bosnia.The ethical responsibility posed by the “abhorrent” ethniccleansing by the Serbs was not enough to warrant action,“because America does not have enough at stake to warrantthe massive American casualties that would occur on allsides if we widened the war. Therefore, that course isunacceptable.” Yet the United States cannot do nothing,because we “do have a security interest in limiting theviolence and preventing it from spreading and stimulating abroader European war,” and we “certainly have ahumanitarian interest in mitigating the effects of theviolence and the human suffering.” Speaking 8 monthsbefore the Dayton Accords committed U.S. troops, Perryclaimed that “[w]e have been able to achieve these goals inBosnia at an acceptable risk to Americans.” Larger-scale

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intervention was ruled out because of “the limited U.S.interests at stake.” He was skeptical about using themilitary for humanitarian purposes. “Generally, themilitary is not the right tool to meet humanitarian concerns.There are other organizations, government and private, todo this work. We field an army, not a salvation army.”55

In claiming that force will be used on this basis, theapproach makes explicit the assumptions of the activeinternationalists and diverges from the WeinbergerDoctrine. As a result, decisions concerning how force is usedcan become unhinged from whether it is used. There are nothresholds of decisiveness or of costs and risks to guidedecisions. Issues of timing (first vs. last resort) or intensity(overwhelming vs. incremental force) are avoidedcompletely.

The “rule of commensurate military force” is indeed amajor step forward in acknowledging the need to respondflexibly to a host of new threats. Yet as Perry would findbefore leaving the administration, a formulation thathinges on flexible definitions of both interests and forcelevels is, in effect, likely to lead to the frequent use of force ifit is not undergirded by clear thresholds—thresholds ofinterests, costs, and force below which military power willnot be used. More importantly, the Bosnia case would revealthat the laundry- or check-list approach is insufficient. Inthe end, civilian Bosnia casualties drove the administrationand the Europeans to intervene, rather than the threat of awider conflagration mentioned by Perry.

The Clinton administration lacked a clear philosophy, aswell as a clear set of agreed-upon standards, for using force.Yet this did not lead to the kind of wanton use of force thatmight have been indicated by some of the administration’searly rhetoric. The President had proclaimed during a tripto the Balkans in June 1999, for example, that the UnitedStates would halt wars based on religion, race, or ethnicity if“it’s within our power to stop it.”56 Yet the administrationchose not to use force early or serious force in the Rwanda or

30

Sierra Leone conflicts or in Chechnya or Dagestan, amongother possibilities. It did use a degree of discretion inchoosing where to fight.57 The administration onlyaccomplished the minimal aims that it set for itself andwhich passed muster with Congress and the Americanpublic. Furthermore, when the conflict in Kosovo, forexample, was drawn out beyond expectations, theadministration became more realistic and planned for theuse of ground and ground-attack forces. It should be madeclear that in that crisis many senior military leaders wereno more convinced than were civilians of the need to useblunt, costly ground forces.

There are three kinds of problems when a basicphilosophy is lacking: clarity of signals; domestic pressures;and improper employment of force. First, while etchingguidelines in stone will provide a clear roadmap for ourenemies, the absence of a basic philosophy can open the wayto actions and probes by America’s enemies. Saddamprobably did not take seriously the administration’swarnings in 1997 about knocking out its WMD capabilities.Second, domestic pressures and concerns—including thosewith legitimate and significant international origins, suchas the growing concern for humanitarian abuses—willinevitably play an important role in determininginternational actions if there is no underlying philosophy onthe use of force and a commitment to following through on it.Domestic concerns may also set limits on the tolerance ofcasualties if they do not accord with the importance of anoperation. The problem is not unique to the Clintonadministration. The Carter administration had anambivalent view towards the role of force in theinternational system. Once in power, Carter found itnecessary to renege on campaign promises to reduce the roleof force in American foreign policy. Finally, without a basicphilosophy, an administration risks using too little or toomuch force due to over- or under-reactions because ofunclear motivations about the reasons for the intervention

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or the above-mentioned role of domestic pressures andlimitations.

The Powell Doctrine vs. the Powell-Bush Argument:Foundations for an Approach.

In no small part due to his unhappiness with what hesaw as a lack of direction on Bosnia during the early Clintonperiod, Powell entered the intervention debate at the end ofthe Cold War. He made his views known in an October 1992letter to the editor of the New York Times and in a majorarticle in that winter’s issue of Foreign Affairs. In theOctober letter, which the Times entitled “Why Generals GetNervous,” Powell spoke approvingly of the rescue operationat the American embassy in Somalia, the ousting of ManuelNoriega in Panama, and the limited use of force to preventthe toppling of democracy in the Philippines.58 “All of theseoperations had one thing in common: they were successful.There have been no Bay of Pigs, failed desert raids, Beirutbombings, and no Vietnams.” The reason for the successes,he made clear, was that “in every instance we have carefullymatched the use of military force to our politicalobjectives.”59

Powell further developed the theme in the ForeignAffairs article. He argued that, before committing forcesabroad, policymakers should be able to answer thefollowing, somewhat loaded questions: “Is the politicalobjective we seek to achieve important, clearly defined, andunderstood? Have all other nonviolent policy means failed?Will military force achieve the objective? At what cost? Havethe gains and risks been analyzed? How might the situationthat we seek to alter, once it is altered by force, developfurther and what might be the consequences?” If theanswers to these questions were satisfactory, then clear andunambiguous military objectives, firmly linked with thepolitical objectives, must be given to the armed forces.60

Finally, he stated that decisive, overwhelming forceshould always be the preferred method of using American

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military power. Gradualism violates fundamentalNapoleonic principles of warfare, may create an illusion ofcontrol, and usually fails to defeat a conventional enemy. Inhis autobiography, he said about Panama,

The lessons I absorbed from Panama confirmed all my

convictions over the preceding 20 years, since the days of doubt

over Vietnam. Have a clear political objective and stick to it.

Use all the force necessary, and do not apologize for going in

big if that is what it takes. Decisive force ends wars quickly

and in the long run saves lives. Whatever threats we faced in

the future, I intended to make these rules the bedrock of my

military counsel.61

Despite his deserved reputation as a forceful proponentof using overwhelming force and as an opponent of deeperinvolvement in Bosnia, the intellectual gist of Powell’sargument actually strayed quite far from the strict criteriaof his former boss, Weinberger. Powell went to great lengthsto make clear that the questions were not intended as ablueprint for a country’s policy on the use of force.62 To do sowould destroy the ambiguity central to any nation’s foreignpolicy, he said, thereby signaling to our enemies what wewill and will not fight for. If it is rational, Powell argued, agovernment will alter its strategy according to evolvingcircumstances:

[H]aving a fixed set of rules for how you will go to war is like

saying you are always going to use the elevator in the event of

fire in your apartment building. Surely enough, when the fire

comes, the elevator will be engulfed in flames or, worse, it will

look good when you get in it only to fill with smoke and flames

and crash a few minutes later. But do you stay in your

apartment and burn to death because your plan calls for using

the elevator to escape, and the elevator is untenable? No, you

run to the stairs, an outside fire escape, or a window. In short,

your plans to escape should be governed by the circumstances

of the fire when it starts.63

Powell went on to argue that not only can we notstipulate ahead of time whether the use of force iswarranted, but how U.S. forces are used is also open to

33

interpretation in the light of extant circumstances. Decisiveforce should always be preferred, while surgical airbombings and other limited attacks should be treatedskeptically. The latter should not be rejected out of hand,however:

This is not to argue that the use of force is restricted to only

those occasions where the victory of American arms will be

resounding, swift, and overwhelming. It is simply to argue that

the use of force should be restricted to occasions where it can do

some good and where the good will outweigh the loss of lives and

other costs that will surely ensue. . . .

When we do use American forces, we should not be equivocal: we

should win and win decisively. If our objective is something

short of winning—as in our air strikes into Libya in 1986—we

should see our objective clearly, then achieve it swiftly and

efficiently.

Powell again acknowledged the success of limitedmilitary and humanitarian operations in Somalia, Liberia,the Philippines, Panama, Kuwait, Iraq, Somalia,Bangladesh, and Bosnia.64

Powell’s argument is therefore quite different and moresophisticated than what has come to be accepted as thePowell doctrine.65 The Powell argument favors a “logicalprocess” before committing U.S. forces. Leaders should askthe difficult questions about the value of their objectives,the costs, gains, and risks of achieving those objectives, andlean toward decisive force when relevant. They should besure the benefits outweigh the costs. But leaders cannotreasonably announce ahead of time what they will or willnot do. Nor should they rule out the limited use of force.

President Bush mirrored these remarks in a speech atWest Point just before leaving office in January 1993. Heargued that neither interests nor hard-and-fast criteriawere sufficient guidelines for using force. Instead,policymakers needed judgment, based on a case-by-caseanalysis, while keeping in mind five principles. Force

34

should be used, the President said, “where the stakeswarrant, where and when force can be effective, where noother policies are likely to prove effective, where itsapplication can be limited in scope and time, and where thepotential benefits justify the potential costs and sacrifice.”In every case, “it will be essential to have a clear andachievable mission, a realistic plan for accomplishing themission, and criteria no less realistic for withdrawing U.S.forces once the mission is complete.” International supportwill be sought but is not a prerequisite. “Sometimes a greatpower has to act alone. . . .”66

Bush stressed that “the question of military interventionrequires judgment. Each and every case is unique.” LikePowell, he claimed that to

adopt rigid criteria would guarantee mistakes involving

American interests and American lives. And it would give

would-be troublemakers a blue-print for determining their

own actions. It could signal U.S. friends and allies that our

support was not to be counted on.67

Inherent in the Powell-Bush way of thinking is thetension between the desire to set out clear limitations on theuse of force, and the acceptance of the view that in somecases limited force can be used successfully for a variety ofends. The limitations arise from the reason “why generalsget nervous”: “[W]hen so-called experts suggest that all weneed is a little surgical bombing or a limited attack” and thedesired ends are not met, “a new set of experts then comesforward with talk of a little escalation.”68 Such dynamicscould eliminate the needed limitations on scope, and alsocan destroy a meaningful relationship between politicalobjectives and military goals.

On the other hand, the acknowledgement that some usesof limited force are valid derives from an acceptance thatforce will be used to promote less-than-vital interests in thepost-Cold War world. As Bush put it,

35

we cannot always decide in advance which interests will require

our using military force to protect them. The relative

importance of an interest is not a guide: Military force may not

be the best way of safeguarding something vital, while using

force might be the best way to protect an interest that qualifies

as important but less than vital.”69

This affirmation of the relevance of force for interests thatare not related to the very survival of the country opensmany doors, which, in the absence of judgment and logicaldecision processes, can lead to disaster.

Clear proponents of this school of thought are few and farbetween. Eliot Cohen has written that prudence will alwaysbe required in decisions on military intervention. Anadministration must ask, “What price would the UnitedStates pay for intervening, and what for refraining?”70

Richard Haass has argued more extensively for this schoolof thought. A former speechwriter for Bush and nowDirector of Policy Planning in the State Department forPresident George W. Bush, Haass claims that “interests areonly a guide,” “neither victory nor an exit date should beprerequisites,” “popular and congressional support aredesirable but not necessary,” the early use of force ispreferable to the later use, and overwhelming force is betterthan gradualism. He notes that there is no substitute forjudgment.71

Assessing the Powell-Bush Argument. Powell and Bushaccepted that the nation would be fighting forless-than-vital interests. While Powell always resisted thisin practice, Bush ordered the humanitarian operation inSomalia, thereby setting an important precedent. ThePresident also spoke favorably of intervening “where thestakes warrant.” By implication these stakes were differentthan strictly vital interests, but the Powell-Bush approachprovides little resolution to the problem of which interestsare worth the expenditure of what costs in terms of lives andresources. This central problem remains subject to debateunder the Powell-Bush approach. Before OperationDESERT STORM, President Bush chose to allow the debate

36

to occur in public and, formally, in Congress. BeforeOperation DESERT SHIELD and Somalia, the debate, suchas existed, was private and internal.

This approach also does not offer a guide to the level ofcosts and risks that will be considered acceptable orexcessive in any given set of circumstances. Nor does it helppolicymakers discern between short- and long-term costsand risks, or how different kinds of risks should be valued bydecisionmakers (for example, between the cost in Americanlives and the danger of developments in other theaters).These important issues are left malleable, subject to thestrategic context and political interpretation.

In the absence of clearer guidelines, someinterpretations will be detrimental to effective policy. Anexample is the primary role that the “zero casualties”mindset has come to play in planning for peace operations.In that absence of a broad-based consensus on the value ofthe operations themselves, the Clinton administrationchose to protect itself from criticism (and the missions fromrejection) through avoiding casualties at all costs.72

A third distinguishing feature of this school concerns thenotion that “victory” may have varied definitions. For thestrict criteria school of Weinberger, the great lesson learnedin Vietnam was, as Weinberger put it in 1986, “We mustnever again commit U.S. forces to a war we do not intend towin.”73 Leaving aside the accuracy of this statement, in thePowell-Bush view, this attitude is replaced with the “carefulmatching of military and political goals,” the achievement ofwhich may or may not be swift.

“Matching” implies that the use of military force shouldaccomplish the political goals at which it is aimed. Theissues of how, at what cost, within what time frame, andhow completely political goals should be accomplished, arenot addressed. Nor does this approach address the problemof unclearly defined political goals such as those that areinherent in humanitarian and peace operations.Nevertheless, the approach acknowledges that victory may

37

have many faces, and, for new challenges, may defytraditional interpretations.

Fourth, force may be used before other instruments ofpower are exhausted, in this view, for the last resort clauseof the Strict Criteria school is also modified in this approach.In Bush’s view, the military should be used if it is the besttool for the job, regardless of whether it is the last toolreached for. Here he echoed Shultz in claiming that holdingback force as a last resort makes it more likely that force willbe needed, and by implication that the early use of limitedforce may prevent the need for more massive force later.

The Powell argument, then, calls for a logical process ofassessment and the matching of military power to politicalends, while it relaxes the Weinberger criteria that vitalnational interests must be at stake, that clear militaryvictory is always relevant, and that public support must beclear ahead of time. Bush—unlike Powell—also relaxed thecriteria that force must be a last resort. The proclamation ofand rigid adherence to clear and strict criteria are rejected.

This is not to argue that in his capacity as CJCS Powellalways adhered to this argument as opposed to the moredogmatic interpretation of his doctrine. Powell used hispolitical weight to shape policy to an extent that many havefound troublesome.74

This discussion points to the need to further define thekinds of interests that are worth fighting for, and how thenational security bureaucracy can better match means andends. Bush and Powell appear to believe that these twoissues lie within the purview of the White House. In theirmemoirs, neither suggests that government reorganizationor bureaucracy renewal would result in better or worsedecisions on the use of force.

38

Summary of the Four Approaches, and WhyRetrenchment Is Not an Option.

The four main approaches to using force, put forth byvarious administrations, officials, and analysts since theearly 1980s, are summarized in Table 1. They are shaped bydifferent bureaucratic, political, and individual experiencesand are based upon different assumptions concerning theproper uses of the military institution, broadly conceived, inthe furtherance of foreign policy aims.

39

Approach

(Advocates)

Purpose of Military

Force

Criteria To Be Met Before

Using Force

Criteria for Police

Force Employment

Strict Criteria

(Weinberger,

others)

Deterrence of and

readiness for

major war. Decisive

military victory

Vital national interest

Clearly defined political

and military objectives

Willingness of U.S. and

allies to commit

sufficient forces to win

Assured public support

Other instruments of power

have failed (“last

resort”)

Reassess as necessary

Avoid gradualism: win

Size forces to achieve

objectives

Intuitive

Interventionism

(Shultz,

Albright)

Coercive diplomacy

Preemption

Deterrence (of

terrorism)

Conventional

operations

Assessment of

appropriateness for

achieving foreign policy

goals

Prepare legal,

diplomatic, political,

international fronts

to ensure success

Develop exit strategy

Criteria

Overload/

Sliding Scale

(Clinton

administration)

Support an array of

foreign policy

goals--

democratization,

coercive diplomacy,

humanitarian

missions. Fight and

win major wars

Possible reasons:

Defend against attack on

U.S. or ally

Counter aggression

Defend economic interests

Promote or defend

democracy

Prevent spread of WMD,

terrorism, international

crime, drug trafficking

Maintain credibility

Humanitarian purposes

Make level of force

commensurate with

stakes

Logical Process

(Powell, Bush)

Fight and win major

wars

Support an array of

foreign policy

goals (unspecified)

Assessment that political

objective is important,

clearly defined, and

understood

Assessment that military

force will achieve

objective

Assessment that costs,

risks, gains will be

beneficial to U.S.

Anticipation of altered

circumstances

Clear and unambiguous

military objectives

Link military

objectives to

political objectives

Use decisive,

overwhelming force if

appropriate

Have realistic exit

strategy

Table 1. Four Approaches to Using Force.

The Shultz-Weinberger debate set the parameters ofthe discussion, and each side has adherents today. TheClinton administration moved from a posture resemblingIntuitive Interventionism to an approach emphasizing theneed to consider a multitude of factors before using force.Powell and the Bush administration also shifted theirposture from an initial reliance on Weinberger-like strictcriteria to what I have labeled the Powell or Powell-Bushargument. Unlike the frequently cited “Powell doctrine,”the argument loosened some of Weinberger constraints andemphasized the matching of political aims and militarymeans.

I have argued that the Weinberger approach in its pureform is not suited to contemporary challenges, and that callsfor a return to strict criteria in the service only of near term,obvious and concrete vital interests are misplaced, thejustifications often are based on mistaken historicalanalogy. The Weinberger Doctrine is more appropriatelyconsidered a defense policy than a foreign policy, and in itsmost restrictive guise, it violates the principle that militarypower should serve policy. The Intuitive Interventionistapproach, on the other hand, may mislead policymakersinto using military force in inappropriate situations and in acostly fashion. The Clinton administration attempt to “splitthe difference” did not provide a helpful basis for futureaction. The Powell-Bush approach is a good start.

Before proceeding, we should address a differentargument favoring a general policy of nonintervention forwhich the Weinberger approach might also be invoked.Some have argued for a general retrenchment from globalactivism not to conserve military power for its own sake, butbecause an activist agenda is counterproductive. SamuelHuntington claims that America has lost its sense ofidentity and of important national interests. The loss of aclear enemy together with the capture of foreign policy byspecial interests mean it is better to retrench and wait forthe emergence of clear threats than to go down a path fromwhich it will be difficult to depart.75 Richard Betts similarly

40

asks whether retreat is not the best defense against what heconsiders the real threat to American security, an attack onthe homeland using WMD. He argues that interventionismbreeds enemies.76 Ivan Eland of the Cato Institute arguesthat the United States should adopt a policy of militaryrestraint in order to reduce the incentive for asymmetricattacks.77 And Ronald Steele makes a related argumentalthough from a very different point of view. He claims thatthe United States has never been as secure as at present,and that nervousness about global developments arisesfrom an inability to relax rather than the nature of theproblems.78

With regard to intervention in particular, Joseph Nyeargues for U.S. abstinence in non-“A-” and “B-list” crises,which invoke challenges to vital or important nationalinterests. “What is striking is how the ‘C-list’ has come todominate today’s foreign policy agenda.” Kosovo andRwanda belong in this category, in Nye’s view. Nonvitalcases “like Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, and Kosovo continue toforce their way to the foreground because of their ability tocommand massive media attention.”79 Edward Luttwakargues that in any case outside intervention merelypostpones peace and perpetuates war.80 Both authors citepublic pressure and media coverage as main culprits inleading to U.S. and U.N. intervention.

There is, as Nye puts it, a pool of “strong moralpreferences” among the American public. In 1999, forexample, 74 percent of the American public favored U.S. airstrikes against terrorist training camps, and 57 percenteven favored the use of U.S. ground troops for suchcontingencies.81 At the height of the Bosnia crisis in themid-1990s, 58 percent of Americans agreed that the UnitedStates had an “obligation to use force” if there were no otherway to get aid to civilians.82 At the end of 1995 a majoritysupported Clinton’s decision to send troops to Bosnia. Fully63 percent thought U.S. troops should be deployed to Bosniaif a wider war would have to be prevented, and 64 percentthought that the humanitarian desire to stop more killing

41

justified sending U.S. forces.83 Two out of three favoredintervening with a large military force if necessary to stopethnic cleansing. Some of this support came from those whowished to end ethnic conflict; some came from those whowished to ensure a future for NATO; some from thoseconcerned about a wider war and regional instability.84

Even more of the public believed the U.N. should haveintervened to stop ethnic cleansing in Rwanda, and, iflimited means proved ineffective, 62 percent thought theU.N. should have “gone in with a large military force tooccupy the country and stop the killings.” Of theseindividuals, 86 percent favored sending U.S. troops to suchan operation. Similarly, in a June-July 1994 poll takenwhile the genocide was occurring, 60 percent favored settingup safe havens in Rwanda. A strong 62 percent thought theU.N. should send peacekeepers to Burundi, and that theUnited States should contribute troops, according to theApril 1995 poll.85

Recent figures buttress this notion of broad publicsupport. Kull argues that between two-thirds andthree-quarters of the public have traditionally supportedhumanitarian operations, and that the United Statesshould provide about 25 percent of the troops for them.86

Further evidence of a reservoir of support for limitedoperations—a reservoir that could become public pressurein the event of what is perceived as a preventable orstoppable disaster—is provided later in the monograph.Here we should note merely that if we acknowledge anumber of significant public misperceptions, thefoundations for an activist foreign policy may be evenstronger than indicated by the above figures. In the late1990s the public’s median estimate was that 40 percent ofU.N. peacekeepers were American; the actual at the timewas 4 percent. When asked what the appropriate amountwould be, the median response was about 20 percent!Similarly, the median estimate of how much of the U.S.defense budget was spent on peacekeeping was 22 percent,more than 22 times the actual amount. Asked what an

42

appropriate amount would be, the median response was 15percent, a vast increase in the actual budget.87

Yet this pool of support for humanitarian efforts does nottranslate directly into foreign policy. Rather, it is aninteractive process between media, government,international organizations, and, of course, the crisesthemselves that explains how the United States considersmilitary intervention. Indeed, it is puzzling that acombination of mass media and mass public pressurescontinues to be cited as the prime motivators behindinterventions. Jonathan Mermin demonstrated some timeago that media coverage does not drive policy unlesssignificant interest groups and governmental coalitionslead media coverage and undertake campaigns of their own.CNN coverage of the Somalia famine in the spring of 1992,for example, had little impact despite its heart-wrenchingangle. Only after signals from Washington, including“seven senators, a House Committee, the full House andSenate, the Democratic candidate for president, and theWhite House” who contacted major networks, did Somaliaemerge as a major subject of foreign policy debate.88

Were the common understanding of the CNN effectaccurate, policymaking would be much simpler. As it is,however, the interactive process means that it is unlikelythat dispassionate debate, or even White House leadershipor strategy reviews, will be able to eliminate “C-list”military actions.

International developments and other domestic forcesalso cast doubt on the feasibility of this course. Ethnic andtribal conflict, humanitarian disasters, possible conflicts inNortheast Asia, Southwest Asia and Southeastern Europe,and unexpected developments in terrorism or WMDproliferation will confront this and the next administration.Presidents will view such developments with the commonrealpolitik eye of one who has the ability and responsibilityto shape the security environment; they have always doneso. Long-term opportunities and the potential opportunity

43

costs and more immediate losses will move to the fore.Domestic factors will reinforce this inclination to act ratherthan merely to observe, for administrations must somehowrespond to the demands of their constituencies, whichprovide the legitimacy and political support necessary togovern domestically and to pursue a grand strategy in theforeign realm.89 Democrats and Republicans each havesignificant constituencies concerned with issues thatincline them towards recommending force in a variety ofsituations—egregious human rights abuses,democratization, access to resources, and protection ofAmerican lives and property abroad. Perceptions of boththreats and moral responsibilities, in other words, continueto support—and could demand—military action.

Furthermore, administrations will frequently perceive aneed to anticipate and counter criticism for inaction fromtheir political opposition. This is likely to hold true forwhichever party wins the next election: intangible interestssuch as the need to maintain a domestic constituency for anoverarching grand strategy or the need to upholdcommitments and reputation will inevitably lead to thedeployment of sizable American military forces.90

In sum, the norm of roughly a dozen serious conflictsoccurring around the globe in any given year is likely tocontinue for the foreseeable future. It will be impossible forthe United States to avoid any involvement all of the time,for reasons residing in public concerns and in presidentialleadership as described above.91

The wisdom of the “retrenchment” course of action isdoubtful in any case, because the opportunity costs ofinaction are so great. Opportunity costs may be defined as“the value of what these resources could have produced ifthey had been used in the best alternative way.”92 JacobHeilbrun rightly asks whether any entrepreneur recentlysuccessful in vanquishing his main competitor of severaldecades would suddenly decide to pull back and sell offassets. It would be equally unusual for a national entity to

44

retrench, rethink strategy, and wait for new challengers toarise.93 Until September 11, 2001, terrorist networks didnot appear to justify costly, limited interventions in theminds of most analysts. In retrospect, deeper engagement,even if they would not have brought total victory, wouldhave been wise.

An administration should have the flexibility to respondto a variety of challenges and to avoid missing opportunitiesfor shaping the security environment, while avoiding someof the greater pitfalls of the more activist approaches to theuse of force. In the next section, we draw lessons from theexisting models and propose an approach—principledjudgment.

Some Principles for a U.S. Intervention Policy.

The senior members of the George W. Bushadministration entered office as confirmed force-conservers. During the campaign, the president had statedhis skepticism of the utility of the use of force, at least inprotracted conflicts with limited U.S. national interest atstake. He confirmed this attitude in a February 12, 2001,interview with the American Forces Information Service:“While my administration will honor the commitmentsprevious administrations have made, we will be verysparing in how we commit our troops overseas.”94 Secretaryof Defense Donald Rumsfeld has stated his clear preferencefor fewer limited military operations and to reduce the sizeof the mission in Bosnia.95 Vice President Richard Cheneyhad, during the first Bush administration, opposed theSomalia operation and in general is viewed as an exponentof the so-called Weinberger-Powell approach.96

As Secretary of State, Powell’s reputation preceded him,and, ironically, it is Powell himself who may moderate strictadherence to a force-conserving approach. It is likely that hewill reinvigorate the State Department. Deputy Secretaryof State Richard Armitage suggests that the governmentwill again have a Secretary of State who is treated as the

45

first among equals.97 As head of a reinvigorateddepartment, Powell will face new roles and responsibilitiesand be inundated with the views of bureaucracies and othernations that challenge the force-conserving philosophy.Africa has already received a more prominent place on thenew administration’s agenda than most had expected. Andwhile accounts differ, it is possible that during the planningfor the raid on Somali warlord Mohammed Aideed, Powellshowed his support for risky military operations that mightbring large payoffs. In any case, it is clear that he did notoppose the mission.98

Every administration faces unanticipateddevelopments. Most use force in some way. Even beforeSeptember 11, it was unlikely that the George W. Bushadministration would have defied history. After the war onterrorism becomes part of the political landscape, there willagain be pressures to intervene—even if to forestall larger,more costly intervention later—when America’s broadvalues and narrow interests are challenged. As RalphPeters has stated, the United States will continue to becomeinvolved in humanitarian and similar operations “becauseof the nature of the world today and tomorrow.”99 Theadministration knows that it must prepare strategically forthese contingencies so that the military can prepare for theoperational tasks.

What might a new intervention policy resemble? Thediscussion above acknowledged useful lessons in each of thefour major approaches. The advantages, disadvantages andderivable lessons are summarized in Table 2.

There is insufficient space here to delve into every aspectand lesson of each approach. Instead, I argue that a postureof Principled Judgment should be constructed in two steps.First, policymakers should agree on some basic principles tobe adopted in considering the use of force. Second,policymakers should consider several institutional changesthat are necessary to ensure the success of an approachbased on principled judgment.

46

47

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2.A

dv

an

tag

es,D

isa

dv

an

tag

es,a

nd

De

riv

ab

leL

esso

ns

inE

ach

of

the

Fo

ur

Ma

jor

Ap

pro

ach

es.

Eight principles in particular should shape decisions onthe use of force.100 If, as Powell argues, “the use of forceshould be restricted to occasions where it can do some goodand where the good will outweigh the loss of lives and othercosts that will surely ensue,”101 policymakers will do a betterjob of estimating the benefits and costs of using force if thesechanges are instituted. The eight principles follow:

1. Defining national interests: from categories tocontext.

There are three primary reasons why reference to notionsof the national interest will be even more contentious in thefuture than they have in the past. First, policymakers willreflexively consider “bolt from the blue” crises more in thecontext in which they arise than in light of prior doctrinalguidance. An instructive lesson is offered by the way inwhich Secretary of State Dean Acheson viewed the problemof the U.S. response to the North Korean invasion in June1950. Acheson’s January 1950 speech excluding Korea fromthe U.S. defensive perimeter in Asia reflectedlong-established policy backed by the Commander-in-Chiefof Far East Forces, the JCS, the State Department, the NSC,and the President.102 Following several policy reviews, theUnited States had withdrawn its last remaining troops fromSouth Korea in 1949, despite acknowledging that the Northwould probably invade and do so successfully. Yet when thishappened, the Truman administration decided to use forcebecause the world could see that the United States had themeans to influence a situation, the outcome of which couldpossibly have dire consequences for American prestige andinterests.

Plainly, this attack did not amount to a casus belli against the

Soviet Union. Equally plainly, it was an open, undisguised

challenge to our internationally accepted position as the

protector of South Korea, an area of great importance to the

security of American-occupied Japan. To back away from this

challenge, in view of our capacity for meeting it, would be highly

destructive of the power and prestige of the United States. By

48

prestige, I mean the shadow cast by power, which is of great

deterrent importance.103

Acheson was not saying that the vital interest of Japanwould be lost if the United States did not act, but rather thatAmerican prestige, influence, and hence the ability to deterother challenges would suffer greatly. When self-proclaimed force conservers point to the need to avoid whatthey refer to as mere diversions in order to prepare for majorbattles such as Korea, they should consider the 1950 contextthat got us into Korea in the first place, for it is relevant toBosnia and other peace operations today. Pre-existingcriteria and strategic assessments based on scenarios ofpossible wars proved irrelevant, as they should have.Administrations will instead view crises in the context ofavailable means and an estimate of costs and risks, in nosmall part because allied and domestic constituencies willdo so.

The second reason that a priori conceptions of thenational interest are not a sufficient guide to using force isthat the boundaries between traditional categories will notbe as clear as they were during the Cold War. SoutheasternEurope is a case in point. Bosnia, Kosovo, and Macedoniabehold elements of important, less important, peripheral,and humanitarian interests for the United States. Whereone falls in this debate depends on one’s time horizon,estimates of the impact on great power relations, theimplications of refugee flows and destroyed economies, theimpact of a variety factors on regional stability, and theimportance of a possible “civilizational clash” in this area onregional or world politics. If one believes that over timeNATO members could come to blows or that NATO itselfcould fragment in disagreement over certain developments,then vital interests are at stake as well: it does not makesense, in this view, not to risk lower costs now if they wouldprevent the loss of vital or highly important interests later.

The third reason has to do with the importance of U.S.reputation, even where there is general agreement that

49

peripheral and humanitarian interests are the overridingmotivations for our concern. Where there is egregious andwidespread suffering, and where the United States, amongothers, has the ability to respond at little cost, inaction willresult in a loss of prestige and leadership aura. Powell’sinterest in the fate of Africa has much to do with this, also.The problems there are so dire that the payoffs fromrelatively small investments may be dramatic, thusaugmenting American prestige and Washington’s positionof global leadership.

Traditional conceptions were suspect even during theCold War. Most could agree that the stakes in Vietnam weresignificant, but whether this warranted a ground war inAsia and, if so, how this war should be fought, were divisiveissues. In the Gulf War, too, disagreements existed withinthe government and administration as to the significance ofSaddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and how the UnitedStates should respond. Bush’s decision to intervene inSomalia was due as much to its simultaneity with theBosnia crisis—and the view that Somalia could be dealtwith much more easily—as to humanitarian concerns.104

The present salience of the terrorist threat does not solvethis problem. The Hart-Rudman Commission concluded inearly 2001 that “[s]tates will acquire weapons of massdestruction and mass disruption, and some will use them.Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in largenumbers.”105 The warning, partially accurate, was notheeded. Within a week of the September 11 attacks, theadministration was already divided on the nature of amilitary response. Dramatic successes due to financialagreements, diplomatic pressures, and political incentiveswill make disagreements about how to respond militarilyeven more prominent. Reliance on the vital nature ofprotecting U.S. citizens will not provide the neededguidelines.

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2. Public support is a constructed pillar of foreignpolicy, not a criterion for action: reinterpreting thelessons of Vietnam and Somalia.

The use of force should not depend upon guarantees ofpublic support. Such a stipulation would have severalharmful effects. It would make more likely an “all ornothing” approach to the use of force, since it is usually moredifficult to garner support for limited uses of force. Thisproblem is magnified by the sound-bite culture in whichforeign policy debates are conducted. Needless to say, thiswould be a particular danger during an election season.

A priori support might also require whipping up publicsupport to an extent that would unduly constrain policylater by making difficult any limitations on the use of force.While the “overwhelming force” school might appreciatethis, political leaders have almost always exhibitedconcerns for that quagmire. The Johnson administrationfeared it would lead to an ineffective American invasion ofLaos and North Vietnam, at least, and with China and/orthe Soviet Union at worst. The Bush administration wasconcerned that such public pressure would demand a marchto Baghdad and a military occupation with unknowablecomplications.

This approach is especially unwise during periods ofstrategic change and upheaval. Literate and reasonablywell-informed publics in Europe and America refused for anentire decade to see the challenges posed by Nazi andFascist ideology and power. While the initial response toSeptember 11 was heartening, within days one could heararguments that U.S. policy brought the disaster upon itselfand that militant action would only make matters worse —in other words, appease. Whether the public attitude inAmerica today resembles Europe of September 1939 or ofthe mid-1930s remains to be seen.

The public needs to be educated and consulted, nothanded the keys to policymaking. The framers of theConstitution went to great lengths to prevent the passions

51

of the people from taking the helm of the ship of state. Thisshould be no less a concern when those passions mayprevent the use of force in cases where it is desperatelyneeded.

Finally, it should be clear that in virtually all uses offorce, the public initially rallies to support theadministration’s policies.106 This is true even in cases inwhich the President has a high disapproval rating and whenlosses are dramatic: it is often forgotten that the Korean warclaimed several thousand American dead in the firstmonths of fighting. The key then is to sustain this support ifthe policy is effective. This is entirely feasible if theadministration itself understands the reasons why it hasembarked on a conflict, for it is then able to communicatethese to opinion leaders and the general public. Mostimportantly, the administration must consult withcongressional leaders and seek their support.

Misunderstanding on the issue of public support islargely the result of misinterpretations of the impact ofpublic opinion on the conflicts in Vietnam and Somalia. TheU.S. military is only the most vociferous proponent of theinterrelated views that the public lost Vietnam, and thatpublic will is insufficient for even the smallest numbers ofcasualties. Without debating the causes of defeat inVietnam, one can still point out two critical facts aboutpublic opinion in that war. First, a significant proportion ofpublic opinion supported massive escalation and wideningof the war from 1965 to well after the 1968 Tet offensive.Second, opinion in favor of withdrawal grew in proportion tothe casualties incurred. John Mueller showed that thisrelationship was common to both wars, and others haveshown that support can waver even in the most clear-cut ofwars, as in World War II.107 Finally, in Vietnam majoropposition did not prevent escalation of the war andengagement for an additional 4 to 6 years.

Somalia has become even more of a chimera for thosewho argue that there is no depth to the American will to

52

pursue limited operations. One can hardly attend anacademic, policy, or military conference without hearing thetocsin of October 1993. As the story goes, the death of 18American serviceman, and perhaps the ruthlessexploitation of their deaths by both Somali warlords and theevening news which showed bodies dragged through thestreets of Mogadishu, were enough to cause a public outcryagainst participation in the endeavor and to prompt thesetting of an end-date. In reality, public opinion turnedagainst neither the operation nor peacekeeping ingeneral.108 What caused withdrawal from Somalia were theattacks by Clinton’s opposition in Congress, the absence of astrategy for preempting or countering this, and the lack ofstomach in the White House for a foreign policy battle. Thelatter may have been compounded by a lack of clearreasoning regarding the nature and purpose of theAmerican mission in Somalia.

Effective political leadership can have a major impact onhow the public interprets the importance of casualties. Aunified leadership supporting a particular operation islikely to be reflected in unified public support; divided orsignificantly opposed portions of leadership will also find apublic counterpart.109 The public generally supportsoperations other than war and is willing to accept some tensof casualties in humanitarian operations.110

James Anderson has written that the claim that thepublic will not accept casualties “collapses upon closescrutiny” if the intervention rationale seems justified. Heincludes in the category of reasonable justifications theprotection of vital interests or the aversion of “a preventablehumanitarian disaster.” In such cases, the ire of theAmerican public will be directed against the adversary.111 AWest Point study on public attitudes towards casualtiesfinds that “the American public is quite willing to acceptcasualties” if leaders persuade them that the mission is inthe national interest, and that they will see it through to asuccessful conclusion.112 Peter Feaver and ChristopherGelpi hold that additional public opinion polls demonstrate

53

that the foreign policy elites who believe “that Americansdemand a casualty-free victory as the price of supportingany military intervention abroad” are simply wrong. “Thegeneral public is far more willing to tolerate combat lossesthan civilian policymakers—or senior military officers.”113

The evidence from the period immediately following theSeptember 11 attacks supports the thesis that the publicwill not shy from casualties. Over 80 percent felt that theUnited States should take military action even if that meantgoing to war with a nation that harbors terrorists. Morethan 90 percent believed the United States should takemilitary action against “whoever is responsible for theattacks.”114

Public support of or acquiescence to military operationsis necessary. The most important determinant of publicsupport is not, however, the level of approval before anoperation begins, but rather the degree to which leadershipcan articulate the reasons why the operation serves thenational interest. The public is well prepared to supportpeace operations even if some tens of U.S. casualties areincurred, provided the leadership can explain theimportance of the mission. The proper criterion is thereforethe willingness and ability of the leadership to explain andjustify the intervention.

3. Discard the “last resort” principle.

Prior to September 11, U.S. policy essentially adhered tothis principle in its fight against terrorists: use means thatwe will not incur casualties and, if force is used, see that it,too, does not incur casualties. The quick resort tofinger-pointing by both civilians and retired militarypersonnel reveals that the approach is now seen aswrong-headed.115

To Shultz, the last resort principle meant that “by thetime of use, force is the only resort and likely a much morecostly one than if used earlier.”116 Virtually all parties to thedebate pay lip service to this principle, but it is both

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misguided and impractical. Force may be the appropriatetool for some crises, while economic or other tools may workin others; sequencing has little to do with the efficacy of asolution. Ironically, those who most oppose the gradualapplication of military force tend to favor the gradualapplication of the overall might of a nation, beginning withdiplomatic approaches, proceeding through economicleverage and possible sanctions, and only in the finalanalysis concluding that the use of overwhelming force isjustified.

This approach is inappropriate for many contemporaryproblems. An “economic strike” is not likely to be effective atstopping an international terrorist organization withsophisticated political and financial networks. Diplomaticand economic tools not only failed to halt Serb aggression inBosnia and Kosovo but also may have bolstered domesticsupport for Milosevic while making the later use of militaryforce more difficult and of questionable utility.117

The pursuit of economic sanctions without preparationsfor major military action would have been the height offantasy in trying to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Moreimportantly, a “last resort” approach would havesquandered the emotion necessary to cement together animprobable coalition. If it continued for long, militarydraw-downs and events elsewhere may have precludedmilitary action altogether. The result would have been anuclear Iraq in control of 40 percent of the world’s oilproduction.

The early use of force is also appropriate for purposes ofdeterrence and coercive diplomacy. Operation DESERTSHIELD was more effective than unsubstantiated threatswould have been for deterring an Iraqi advance into SaudiArabia. Rapidly deployable ground forces may havedeterred or, later, forced a halt to the ethnic cleansing ofKosovar Albanians. As Shultz stated, the doctrine of lastresort “means that, by the time of use, force is the only resortand likely a much more costly one than if used earlier.”118

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Force should not be a first, middle, or last resort out ofmere principle. Rather, the circumstances shoulddetermine the proper response. Under what conditions willthe early insertion of ground troops, or strikes from air andsea, or accurate bombing, prevent various kinds of ethnic ortribal conflict, or coup attempts, or cross-border conflict inSoutheastern Europe? For various reasons, neither theacademic nor the policy community has examined these in arigorous fashion. The efficacy of the sequence with whichthe instruments of national power are used in various kindsof crises deserves further study. A useful start would be toconduct a series of studies examining the conditions underwhich a range of preemptive or early uses of force are likelyto forestall deeper conflict of various types.

4. Redefine “victory” to include foreign policyvictories, not only military victories.

In many respects, the Weinberger Doctrine is not aforeign policy statement but a military doctrine. It fitscomfortably with the governing military principles ofoverwhelming force and “going in to win.” In Weinberger’swords, “We cannot fight a battle . . . as in the case ofVietnam, in effect asking our troops not to win, but just to bethere.” If we decide it is necessary to put “combat troops intoa given situation, we should do so wholeheartedly, and withthe clear intention of winning. If we are unwilling to committhe forces or resources necessary to achieve our objectives,we should not commit them at all.”119

When this concept is adhered to reflexively andsuperficially, Weinberger’s supporters violate thefundamental principle that a military exists to serve policy,however victory is defined by policy. In major war, wherethe threats are to vital interests and exist in the near term,“winning” can be defined in largely military terms.Otherwise, objectives will be limited, and both interventionand military doctrine must accept this. Senior militaryleaders then have an obligation to point out the efficacy orinefficacy of military force given the political objectives, and

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senior political leaders have an obligation to acquire theknowledge to understand these military realities. This doesnot mean that political leaders must accept militaryconceptions of risk or definitions of “wholeheartedly.”Suggestions are offered below regarding how military andpolitical leaders can agree on appropriate levels of force andpolitical objectives in a changing security environment. Thesuggestion made above, that the military needs better tomake its case for limited contingencies, is relevant here aswell.

The war on terrorism has rammed this lesson home. Themilitary may be called upon to perform missions that arecostly in terms of lives and readiness and which will notbring a clear victory in the traditional sense of the term.Troops may be inserted for a short period of time only to bewithdrawn without the achievement of noticeable progress,and then re-inserted with no guarantee that progress orvictory will come this time, either. Civilian and militaryleaders must achieve a modus vivendi based on the likelysuccess of a long, painful war. Apart from first principles,political reality also suggests that the military needs toshow some initiative in redefining how its forces can lead tovarious conceptions of victory. For regardless of partyaffiliation, the political leadership will always require moreflexible definitions of winning than that provided by themilitary art. For those politicians who believe stability insoutheastern Europe is a very important national interestand that massive ethnic cleansing threatened this stabilitydue to the movement of refugees and militaries, thedeployment of combat-capable troops is a valid foreignpolicy instrument. Whether they are in Macedonia orBosnia, these combat troops are doing somethingconsiderably less than “winning” but more than simply“being there,” although in some cases the mission mayapproach the latter. But unless deterrence and stability areno longer considered valid strategic objectives and themilitary a vital tool in those strategies, the “win” principle ofthe Weinberger Doctrine must be rejected.

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There are several other deterrence-and-stabilitysituations in which the military might properly beinterjected. They are, of course, vital to our posture in theAsia-Pacific region for a combination of deterrence andstability purposes. Troops in Korea and Okinawa areintended to deter a North Korean attack on South Korea.Yet they also advance a series of other vital Americaninterests. They signal the country’s commitment to remainengaged in the region and to prevent naked aggression.They are a tool for dampening military buildups by some ofour allies which we believe might inflame tensions.

These troops also may be used for a variety ofuncomfortable scenarios that fall between war and peace. ANorth Korean implosion could lead to a massivehumanitarian operation necessary for the relativelypeaceful transition to a new order on the peninsula. Undercurrent arrangements, this might require American troopsunder the command of an American general to operate inthe North, most likely under the watchful eye of the ChinesePeople’s Liberation Army (PLA). This could be one of themost sensitive operations for the U.S. Army. Invocation ofthe relevant Weinberger principle will be irrelevant.

5. Discard the “first resort” impulse: Reintegratemilitary power into grand strategy.

Existing debate on the role of force is hamstrung bylinear thinking about the sequencing of force in a series ofpolicy options available to the White House. This is but onesymptom of what has been termed a “cold warhangover”—the use of concepts regarding military powerand grand strategy that were more appropriate to a bipolarconfrontation between two superpowers with vastlydifferent ideologies.120 It made sense, in that environment,to lay down a well-spaced row of hurdles ahead of the finishline, which would trigger the decisive use of force.

The contemporary security environment is different.Accordingly, the current administration would do well tore-examine how the military instrument works within the

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context of the other elements of national power insupporting a coherent grand strategy. Once an end-state isdefined (policy) for a particular issue or region, then weshould consider how the elements of national power arecoordinated to achieve that end, given our own domesticpolitics, international conditions and the regional aims ofour potential adversaries. As Paul Kennedy wrote in 1991:

The crux of grand strategy lies . . . in the capacity of the

nation’s leaders to bring together all of the elements, both

military and nonmilitary, for the preservation and

enhancement of the nation’s long-term . . . best interests. . . . It

is not a mathematical science in the Jominian tradition, but an

art in the Clausewitzian sense—and a difficult art at that,

since it operates at various levels, political, strategic,

operational, tactical.121

In other words, the military is just one element ofnational power. There is the need to begin the torturousprocess of creating or reinvigorating other institutionsneeded to accomplish foreign policy aims where thechallenges are less of a conventional military nature andmore in the realms of policing abilities, border patrols,economic and industrial infrastructure, and otherfundamentals of modern societies.

In areas such as the Balkans and Southwest Asia,bayonets may be good, but sitting on them will not achieveour aims. We cannot continue to assign to the military thesocio-economic-political tasks simply because no otheragency, at home or abroad, can accomplish them. The otherelements of national power must be brought up to the taskand convinced that they either need to execute the taskthemselves or serve as a catalyst to an internationalcoalition of the willing, to include international NGOs.122

Within weeks of the September 11 attacks, the Bushadministration appears to have assembled the fully array ofinstruments of national power in the service of destroyingterrorist networks.

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6. Require clearly defined political objectives, butdo not limit political objectives to simple ones; and,closely match political and military objectives, butdo not allow military doctrine to shape politicalstrategy.

Clausewitz claimed that no one in their right mindwould start a war without knowing what they intended toaccomplish and how they intended to accomplish it. Thishas been interpreted narrowly to mean that political goalsmust be clear-cut. The archetype of poorly-defined politicalobjectives is usually the Johnson administration’s goal ofpreventing the defeat of South Vietnam by convincing theNorth Vietnamese and Viet Cong that they could not win.Denying the enemy victory is not an adequate objective, inthis view, for it does not allow for military victory, which inturn denies such military principles as concentration, mass,momentum, and attacking the enemy’s “center of gravity.”

Senior military leaders did not accept this interpretationof events in Vietnam until several years after the defeat. Infact, in the 1960s they espoused the “denial of victory to theenemy” strategy as valid because the alternatives—withdrawal or war throughout Indochina and/or withChina—were unacceptable. Some authors have written ofsolutions that would have brought victory by introducingforce more rapidly, or using fewer forces but to “seal off thebattlefield,” or simply calling for the application, withoutsupplying the details, of overwhelming force. At the time,however, senior military and political leaders faced a highlycomplex international environment and saw inestimablestakes in the third world. Decolonization, wars ofinsurgency and “national liberation,” and the open Sovietcommitment to winning these battles required a solution.

The senior political and military leadership in the 1960spreferred to assume risk by pursuing a strategy aimed atminimizing losses while hurting the enemy. Both sides ofthe civil-military equation underestimated the enemy’swill, misunderstood his ability to adapt operationally and

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strategically, and underestimated the number of casualtiesthat would be inflicted upon the U.S. military. The militaryfailed to make this clear by performing a strategic estimateor presenting such findings to highest authority, in largepart because they were no more sure of this new,unpredictable situation than were their political masters.123

Future developments are likely to present situationsthat go far beyond the complexity confronted by militaryand civilian leaders in the early 1960s. There are competingideologies based on religion, economic theory, racial notions,and cultural differences. Urbanization, migration, anddramatic technological changes dwarf the decolonizationmovement. Emerging military technologies offer promise ofnew strategies. And there are many aspiring or actualregional powers with strong incentives to interfere in othernations’ affairs.

The military instrument of national power will continueto be used as a tool in dealing with these complexities. As aresult, definitions of political objectives will grow insubtlety, to the understandable consternation of themilitary should they be given the lead in accomplishingthose objectives. There must be a retreat from the notionthat it is possible to disassociate power from policy, or to usemilitary power without attendant risks of prolongedinvolvement, unanticipated political and militarydevelopments, and significant casualties. Victories in theGulf War and in Panama have been interpreted,erroneously, to mask these realities and to lay out faultyblueprints for the use of force.124

For their part, political leaders must do two things.First, they must make a clear case that military force islikely to achieve a substantial portion of their goals in areasonable amount of time, variables that can be discussedand debated. Second, they must more honestly acknowledgethe risk to other theaters and contingencies caused by theselimited uses of force.

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7. Address the issues of likely duration and likelycosts up front and publicly.

Before the major escalatory decisions on Vietnam in1964 and 1965, Under Secretary of State George Ballpresented graphs and charts demonstrating the strongcorrelation between increased casualties and decreasedpublic support during the Korean War. Johnson and hisadvisors did not so much disagree with the facts as theygrasped at other information and advice suggesting that thewar could be concluded in a relatively short period of timeand without making what they referred to as an onerous“Korea-type commitment.”

Bush must not make the same mistake in the war onterrorism. History shows that when faced with high levels ofuncertainty and difficult value trade-offs, policymakershave a tendency to take an unrealistically optimistic view ofthe costs and risks of using force. The march north in Korea,the Bay of Pigs, and the Clinton administration’s approachto the Kosovo conflict are additional examples of suchreasoning.125 This phenomenon is doubly tempting in casesof intervention in civil or ethnic conflict because it is evenmore difficult to justify the costs and risks of military actionto domestic audiences when traditional threats totraditionally conceived interests are remote. A clearexample of this would be the Clinton administration’s rosypredictions of an early exit from Bosnia following theDayton accords.

The alternative approach of worst-case analysis is onlyslightly more helpful. It was effective when the prior Bushadministration had to plan and justify the supply of troopsto the Persian Gulf. However, worst-case thinking can leadto the absence of realistic estimation and planning as well.Some claim that this was the case during the early years ofthe Bosnian conflict.

In any governmental reorganization, there should begreater institutional incentives for the generation ofestimates regarding the accomplishment of political goals in

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operations other than war. If incentives are not created ordo not work, there should be a legally mandated solutionthat requires civil-military cooperation on a range ofcontingencies. Until now, the sources of such estimates haveswung wildly between the military and civilians, and thequality has been equally uneven. In Bosnia and Kosovotoday, the West is confronted with the results of failing to dosuch realistic estimates. We have avoided addressingfundamental causes of the conflicts, and the limitations ofrelatively superficial political restructuring are staringNATO in the face.

If duration and costs are underestimated forconventional wars, the public will almost always rallybehind their government for an extended period.126

Administrations do not have this cushion for humanitarianand related smaller scale contingencies. Even had relationsbetween the early Clinton administration and the militarynot been strained, the deaths of 18 soldiers on a mission forwhich the public was not prepared would likely have led tosimilar calls for withdrawal. Public support for U.S.strategy was more important to the accomplishment of theoverall mission than specific military hardware. Becausethe White House did not prepare the public for the tacticalrisks that were being taken in support of the strategy,support withered with the first substantial casualties. Arealistic understanding of the depths of what is required tohalt or prevent war, or to rebuild a society after it, isnecessary for both success on the ground and support athome.

8. Clarify the desired endstate and build publicsupport around this, not around a departure date.

The American preference for unambiguous outcomeshas been transposed to limited wars and operations otherthan war. It is seen clearly in the growing displeasure over acontinued presence in the Gulf and in Bosnia. In fact, thefield of strategic analysis devotes much more energy to

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choosing and fighting wars than to waging battles that look“beyond the war to the subsequent peace.”127

The United States traditionally has worried little abouthow to end wars, trusting instead in a first principle ofstrategic analysis, that the conduct of the war should beorganically tied to the solution. In the current environment,however, the judicious ending of conflicts may becomenearly as important as the judicious application of powerduring it. The Gulf War, for example, was a relativelysimple case, yet its termination was complex andproblematic. The four national goals declared by Bush hadbeen achieved within 100 hours of ground war. Yet thePresident shut down the operation when he did because hewas shocked at the imagery of the “highway of death.” Moreimportantly, the government apparently was convincedthat the American public would be shocked and disgusted tothe point of questioning America’s war aims. This appearsto have been a misjudgment.128 Furthermore, there weremajor problems in communication between policymakers,the theater commander, and ground force commanders.General H. Norman Schwarzkopf apparently did not knowthe extent of the Iraqi escape, while ground commandersclaim he did not solicit the necessary information.129

In Kosovo and similar wars, the quality of information ismuch lower, and the goals are less traditional. In Bosnia,the lack of high-level attention to, and public debateregarding, end-states leads to the perpetuation of amilitarized strategy, a dearth of public support for thatstrategy, and military reticence to develop forces that mightbe more appropriate to operations other than war but forwhich a fickle political leadership might withdraw support.It also helps to preclude the development of nonmilitaryorganizations that will be necessary for the full withdrawalfrom these devastated areas.130

There are also good reasons for not clarifying theconditions for war termination. At home, it opens anadministration to criticisms that its military and political

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goals, strategies, tactics are misguided. For this reason,political leaders may attempt to “get the camel’s nose underthe tent” and gain public support through underestimatingthe duration or costs of an operation. Again, the Clintonadministration’s optimistic portrayal of an earlywithdrawal from Bosnia is relevant here. Clear statementsof the conditions for termination may also yield someinitiative to our enemies, who may seek to manipulate worldopinion or make false offerings of compromise.

In short, war termination will become more complex andrequire better long-term planning between civilian andmilitary branches. The more first principles are dealt withappropriately, the more support there will be for seeing aconflict through to its proper strategic conclusion.

INSTITUTIONALIZING BETTER JUDGMENT:INFORMATIONAL, ORGANIZATIONAL ANDINTELLECTUAL RENEWAL

Judgment is the ability to form an opinion or evaluationby discerning and comparing, by seeing clearly what isobscure, or by distinguishing and selecting what isappropriate. In decisions to use force, judgment requiresmuch more than simply the application of capabilities. Itinvolves gathering, weighing, and assessing a large amountof information relative to the military and political situationin the target country and at home.

Recent history reveals that most U.S.administrations—regardless of party affiliation or thenature of the crisis—have struggled with exercising goodjudgment in this sense. Vietnam is usually held up as thearchetype of ill-informed judgment on the part of seniorpolitical and military leaders,131 but the record revealsserious problems both before and after Vietnam. In 1950Truman made his critical decision to deploy combat troopsbased on extraordinarily unrealistic estimates of thenumber of ground forces that would be necessary to saveSouth Korea. Ten years after Vietnam, the Reagan

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administration sent Marines into a complex civil war inLebanon with the flawed and, more importantly,unexplored strategic concept that U.S. forces can deter byintimidation and dedicated firepower. This led to a tragicloss of life and to military and diplomatic withdrawal.

The general pattern continued after the 1986Goldwater-Nichols Act. In 1991 the Bush administrationsent 20,000 troops to Somalia but probably did notappreciate the depth and complexity of the famine. Uponinheriting it, an inexperienced Clinton national securityteam compounded the problem by pursuing nation-buildingwithout building the requisite political support, leading to atragic loss of life and retrenchment. In the 1999 Kosovo war,the United States and NATO alike appeared unprepared forSerbia’s response and staying power, nor did they considerearly and seriously enough alternatives to air power.Failure was a very near thing.132

American policymakers have labored in various degreesof darkness for three reasons. One is intellectual rigiditybrought on by the Cold War and, to a significant extent, byvictory in the Gulf a decade ago. A second is the currentinstitutional arrangements that prevent such informationfrom reaching those in need of it. A third is the unfulfilleddemand for an increasing range and depth of expertise andof information necessary to intervene successfully. Thefollowing suggestions are intended either to circumventthese problems or to change them.133

Intellectual Adjustments.

The decisive nature of victory in the Gulf War, togetherwith its timing at the end of the Cold War, helped to freeze inplace a considerable amount of old thinking regarding theuse of force. Perspectives that served us well during the ColdWar, when we could not help but focus on the militarycapabilities of the Soviet Union, have performed adisservice since then by blurring “defense” and “nationalsecurity” into one inappropriate concept.134 There has been

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for nearly a decade the lingering notion that nationalsecurity equates to military policy, and that military poweris appropriate only for fighting the nation’s wars. As aresult, we still do not have a comprehensive policy foraddressing nontraditional challenges to national security.

How did this occur? Complex organizations frequentlybecome prisoner to their own successes. This occurs becauseestablished procedures and routines bring repeatedapparent success, but success is due more to expertcompetency and returns to scale rather than to the adoptionof superior methods.135 Organizations frequently persist inold methods despite the difference in potential between newapproaches and old. Eventually new challenges may be soextraordinary that ordinary approaches do not suffice or areextremely costly.

To varying degrees, such “competency traps” bedevil theU.S. military services and also plague the national securityestablishment as a whole. Both achieved tremendoussuccesses in their primary tasks throughout the Cold War,which included, above all, the deterrence of global war andimproving the wealth and security of the free world. TheGulf War, and our continuing reference back to it after 10years, demonstrated the military’s success at its corecompetency, while almost simultaneously the end of theCold War demonstrated the same for the national securityestablishment as a whole.

Eliot Cohen and John Gooch wrote in 1990 that there is a“proclivity of large and successful military organizations tosee all wars as pretty much the same . . . militaryorganizations must seek out the most difficult kind ofintelligence—knowledge of themselves.”136 A similarargument could be made about the broader nationalsecurity establishment. Design flaws may have causedproblems that looked like ripples during the Cold War, butthese flaws will become much more significant in anenvironment that requires new thinking and coordinatedplanning.137

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Furthermore, competency traps at the military andgovernmental levels spilled over into the public realm. ColdWar thinking on the use of force adhered in the post-ColdWar period into two convenient archetypes during the1990s. For those falling on the active interventionist,frequently Democratic side of the aisle, military force cameto be viewed as a panacea for all forms of concerns nowdeemed to be national security. Throughout the 1990s thattraditional keeper of national security, our military, wasapplied to everything from nation-building to refugeecontrol. As noted above, official documents during theClinton period expanded the scope of national security by ahuge margin to include a variety of human securityissues.138

The liberal archetype of this thinking was a failure. Butits counterpart is equally problematic for U.S. foreignpolicy. The conservative form of the Cold War mindset is toview the military as a force meant only to fight conventionalwars against conventional challenges to the nationalinterest, narrowly construed. Defined as such, themaintenance of an unstressed military becomes an end initself, ironically mirroring the Clinton “force protection aspolicy” position.

Neither archetype has served the nation well. TheClinton approach used the military to exhaustion. TheWeinberger approach is, in the words of General AnthonyZinni, a recipe for being “able to fight no war other thanWorld War II.”139 Not only is that highly unlikely over thenear term, but the opportunity costs of preparing only for itspossibility loom increasingly large. Analysts legitimatelybegin to wonder why “shaping the environment” involvesonly the nonuse of military force.

No matter where one falls on the spectrum betweenthese two positions, we are all recovering Cold Warthinkers. The Bush administration has the unusualopportunity to shape intervention and military doctrine inthe direction either of sustaining the mindset or of

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transitioning to a new era and with a concomitant newunderstanding about the maintenance of national security.To do the latter, then, we must reconsider how nationalpower fits in grand strategy, realizing that military power isbut one tool whose objectives will necessarily be limited forthe foreseeable future.

Organizational Changes at the Top.

Institutional changes can also contribute to improvedjudgment on use-of-force decisions. One fundamentalproblem is that, as currently organized underGoldwater-Nichols, top-level debate on strategic conceptssuffers from the twin requirements of responsiveness to thePresident and the need for eventual consensus. Whenintervention decisions are top-down, President-drivenprocesses, the advisory system frequently has no authorityto make him think twice. When crises unfold more slowly,the system as currently organized harmfully limits therange of debate.

The base of expertise must be expanded and given adegree of independence from the NSC on strategic issues.Both issues—expansion and independence—might be dealtwith through a President’s Advisory Board on the Use ofForce.

140 Consisting of a mix of retired military anddiplomatic officers and regional and functional experts, thebody would provide perspective, “second” thoughts, andstrategic advice. A degree of insulation from politics could beensured through staggered memberships that spanbiennial elections and even administrations.

Like the Council of Economic Advisers or the ForeignIntelligence Advisory Board, the President’s AdvisoryBoard on the Use of Force would have a small staff ofexperts, rely heavily on its reputation for specializedknowledge and independence, produce reports that cannotbe ignored, and influence debate through regularizedmeetings with key players. Congress would have to agree on

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a bipartisan identity for the board and see that it is staffedand led by individuals of the highest integrity.

In addition to the increasing complexity of decisions,new threats may require decision processes that areincreasingly secretive and rapid, thereby making it morelikely that they will be defective. The 1998 bombing ofSudan may have been based on questionable informationand an incomplete airing of views. Yet the nature of theoperation and the seriousness of the threat required closely-held deliberations. The war on terrorism has many of thesame requirements. Just as World War II drew on expertisefrom all segments of business, education, and government,so this war will require input from historians, socialscientists, natural scientists, sociologists, and religiousexperts, among others. A President’s Advisory Board on theUse of Force would help guard against the unhealthynarrowing of views or the premature foreclosure of options.

Other options that should be pursued include theexpansion of representation on the NSC141 and the return toa more Cabinet-centered foreign policy.142 The former wouldhelp marginally while the latter is a laudable goal that willrequire a new National Security Act.

Expertise: Growing Civil and Military Strategists.

I have argued that it is unreasonable to expect that thesmall number of individuals now participating inuse-of-force decisions should understand how U.S.-leviedforce will affect problems as diverse as ethnic conflict,famine, clan warfare, organized terrorism, the deterrence ofthe production, distribution or use of WMD, or the use ofmilitary power to halt refugee flows. Yet successive defensereorganization laws dating from the 1950s progressivelyhave narrowed the group that attends to these modernproblems and trends.

Compounding this problem of a narrow range of advice isthe background and training of the deciders. Many political

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leaders and appointees have a limited understanding of thelaws of war in any situation, much less how they apply tocurrent limited operations and operations other than war.The military has a small but select number of individualswith extensive experience in these operations. During the 8years of the Clinton administration, however, the militarywas in a state of suspension regarding how these operationswere to fit into the entire range of tasks for which they mightbe called. The military needed experts in limited operationsbut was not sure how much effort to put into the endeavor.This growing demand for new expertise has been recognizedpreviously, as when during the Reagan years the Office ofthe Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operationsand Low Intensity Conflict attempted to kindlecongressional interest to ensure that professional militaryeducation met this demand.

In order to grow experts across all the bureaucraciesrequired for the coherent and effective use of military forcein limited, complex operations and to promote bettercooperation among them, the administration shouldestablish a National Civil-Military Training Institute. Suchan institution would bring together early- and mid-careerindividuals who are likely to have a future at the strategiclevel. It would house a curriculum and practicum builtaround the kinds of knowledge and tasks likely to be facedby future leaders. This would require a unique faculty and,to a significant extent, a new curriculum, one that examineshow civil, military, and other factors have interactedthrough history over a wide range of phenomena.

Decisions on using force have always required thedexterous integration of knowledge about things political,military, economic, and social. Emerging problems, fromurban warfare to preemptive strikes against terrorists, willmake this even more challenging. By beginning to build aknowledge base around such problems, future leaders willgain experience early in the multifaceted nature ofthreatening, applying, and avoiding force.

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The integration of military with nonmilitary expertiseafter an intervention begins may be even more demandingin nonconventional conflicts than in more typical ones.Implementation requires the same kind of expertise andknowledge pool—and for longer periods of time—as isrequired for the initial decisions themselves. TheCivil-Military Institute would train and provide this kind ofproduct for longer operations. Such an institute may havemade a difference in how the U.S. mission in Somaliaevolved, for example, in the spring and summer of 1993.This institute would fill a major gap in the education offuture military and civilian officers. It would also capturevaluable experiences and use them for training futureleaders, whereas current educational and career tracks donot necessarily do so.

As important, the institute would be a way to capture thebest from other professions that are necessary to gooddecisions and their implementation. This includesindividuals from scientific, academic, and public policyfields. At present, there is no training or educationinstitution to attract and retain such individuals directly togovernment service. Young scientists with an interest inalleviating water shortages or protecting troops fromchemical attack, for example, may work through themilitary or for a research facility with a governmentcontract or for a public policy school. However, there is noinstitution that brings together on a semi-permanent basisindividuals from all professions relevant to use-of-forcedecisions and operations, which focuses study on theseproblems as a matter of course and which providesprofessional contacts and opportunities.

Search for Bipartisanship on Intervention Policy.

Ultimately, the bridge between force-conserving and amainly force-proponent schools of thought must be found inthe Congress. The Congress is the fulcrum point betweenthe media, public opinion, and the White House. It can

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promote as well as terminate intervention—it managed todo both in Somalia—and it will determine how much of thestrategy review’s recommendations on force structure toaccept or reject.

There is room for bipartisan support. Republican andDemocratic administrations and members of the Congresshave found agreement on both supporting and denyinghumanitarian missions and for strikes against terrorism.This base should be expanded for other developments.Rather than wait until a crisis, the administration shouldbegin to work with congressional leaders to forge minimalbipartisan agreement on intervention responses and thetools necessary for executing them. While significantportions of the parties are far apart on these questions,there is also considerable overlap. Certainly, on some basicissues such as stability in the Persian Gulf and NortheastAsia, they are no more distant than over aspects of thebudget, health care, and education. Bush should renew thespirit of bipartisan cooperation announced upon hisassuming office and use intervention issues as one node ofcontact.

Conclusion and Implications for the Army.

Principled Judgment is, in part, a philosophicalapproach to the use of force and, in part, a series ofguideposts. There is in it an element of ad hoc-ery to theextent that “judgment” outweighs the guiding light of“principles.” Yet previous approaches have lacked both anappreciation of the importance of judgment as well as anacknowledgment that old categories no longer obtain. Thegovernment at large and the general public require someunderstanding of what has changed since the fall of theSoviet Union. For their part, administrations—seniorpolitical and military leaders who work together to decidewhen and how to use force—should acknowledge that theupper reaches of the system could use some institutionalinnovation in order to improve decisions when judgment

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beckons. It is hoped that this combination of realisticprinciples and institutional renewal will lead to widerpolitical agreement on when and how to use force.

The George W. Bush administration entered office onthe force-conserver end of the spectrum of approaches to theuse of force. Initial guidelines emerging from the Office ofthe Secretary of Defense emphasized four objectives: theassurance of friends and allies; the “dissuading” of futureadversaries; deterrence and the successful opposition atattempts at coercion of the United States; and the defeat ofadversaries should deterrence fail.143

Yet is likely that public and congressional pressure willdemand responses to some crises, and that members of thisadministration—as in all previous—will find that the moraland reputational aspects of some situations require action.The Powell or Powell-Bush argument, as opposed to thePowell doctrine, will prove more relevant in the long run. Inaddition, there is always the possibility of a major, as yetunforeseen regional conflict. Rumsfeld has wondered aloud

what name of a country or what word for a military capability

wasn’t mentioned during my confirmation hearings 4 months

ago that within a year could come up and dominate our lives. . . .

(This is) the kind of thing that has happened every 5- or 10-year

period in my lifetime.144

Terrorism, the first shock to the administration’s plans,is the crisis of the moment. Yet even without September 11,and after the terrorist networks are essentially disrupted ordestroyed, this combination of likely public pressure,unforeseen regional developments, and the inherentflexibility in the Powell-Bush Argument mean that theArmy will have to be prepared to execute missions of alimited nature and intensity. This is particularly importantbecause, since 1989, Army buying power has decreased 37percent and Army modernization funding, 41 percent. Thefunding squeeze points to the importance of coordinatingthe political leadership’s intervention strategy with servicerequirements to execute that strategy.

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Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki has stated that theArmy “must train soldiers and leaders to adapt readily toconditions across the spectrum of military operations andbuild organizations capable of attaining dominance at everypoint on that spectrum.” He recognizes that this spectrumwill likely include contingencies ranging from traditionalconflict “to the instability caused by the collapse of statesunable to meet the strains of resource scarcity, populationgrowth, and ethnic and religious militarism. . . . As thenumber of potential challenges increases, the requirementsfor U.S. landpower will also continue to increase.” TheArmy’s first two Initial Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) willprovide organizational and conceptual models for roundingout the Interim Force. Together with the Interim ArmoredVehicle, the Army will proceed until its transformed,Objective Force is able to maintain the same kind ofdominance across the future spectrum of violence as it wasable to guarantee under the traditional, two-major-theater-war scenario. 145 The war on terrorism shouldaccelerate these innovations.

Beyond maintaining dominance across the futurespectrum of violence, policymakers and senior militaryleaders will have to grapple together with reactions todevelopments in friendly countries, on the borders of allies,in states that affect regional stability, or in failing states inwhich there could be a massive humanitarian crisis. AsSteven Metz has argued, the nature of future conflict islikely to include a significant number of limited, ambiguous,cross-cultural operations, rather than having either apredominantly traditional or predominantly humanitarianhue.146 This will require some efforts at anticipating thesedevelopments, preempting them or preventing their spread,and responding with a coordinate civil-military-social planthat will allow withdrawal upon early success. The goal is toprovide realistic plans for long-term resolution of theproblem for which the United States intervenes, therebymaking possible the early withdrawal of troops. The role ofground forces is central to efforts along each of these

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dimensions of anticipation, preemption and prevention, andintervention.

Finally, future crises will require skill sets that in somecases diverge from those involved in fighting and winningthe nation’s major wars. Policymakers must recognize thatthe Army requires the resources to develop and train withthese skills even as it maintains responsibility for moretraditional tasks.

ENDNOTES

1. For a wide-ranging discussion of the many attitudes towardsinterventionism that I have here grouped into two main camps, see“American Power—For What? A Symposium,” in Commentary, January2000. Other summaries of the debate are found in Richard N. Haass,Intervention: The Use of Military Force in the Post-Cold War World, Rev.Ed., Brookings Institution, 1999, Chapter 1; Michael O’Hanlon, SavingLives with Force: Military Criteria for Humanitarian Intervention,Brookings Institution, 1997; Forum in The National Interest, Winter1999/2000. See also, “Why and When to Go In,” Economist, January 6,2001; Michael Ignatieff, “The Next President’s Duty to Intervene,” NewYork Times, February 13, 2000, p. 17; “What in the World?” U.S. Newsand World Report, April 24, 2000, p. 18; Charles B. Shotwell andKimberly Thachuk, “Humanitarian Intervention: The Case forLegitimacy,” Washington, DC: National Defense University Institutefor National Security Studies, July 1999; Alexander Haig, Jr., “TheQuestion of Humanitarian Intervention,” Foreign Policy ResearchInstitute, February 2001; The Commission on America’s NationalInterests, America’s National Interests, July 2000.

2. Speech by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger at NationalPress Club, November 28, 1984, in Department of Defense NewsRelease No. 609-84, also reprinted in The Baltimore Sun, December 3,1984.

3. Caspar Weinberger, Fighting for Peace: Seven Critical Years inthe Pentagon, Warner Books, 1990, p. 159.

4. Report of the Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger to theCongress, Washington, DC, February 1, 1984, Executive Summary, p. 7.

5. John Hillen, “American Military Intervention: A User’s Guide,”The Backgrounder, Heritage Foundation, May 2, 1996, p. 4; DavidFromkin, “Don’t Send in the Marines,” New York Times Magazine,February 27, 1994, pp. 36-37; Ronald Steel, “Beware the Superpower

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Syndrome,” New York Times, April 25, 1994, p. A15; Richard N. Haass,“Paradigm Lost,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 74, No. 1, January/February1995, pp. 43-58, 56; Anthony Cordesman, interview in Defense News,February 28-March 6, 1994, p. 30.

6. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, New York: Simon and Schuster,1994, p. 833.

7. Hillen, n.5, pp. 4-5.

8. Ambassador David Abshire, Opening Remarks, “PresidentialDecisionmaking and the Use of Force,” George Bush PresidentialLibrary, College Station, TX, October 24, 1999.

9. See David Fromkin, “Don’t Send in the Marines,” New York TimesMagazine, February 27, 1994, pp. 36-37; Ronald Steel, “Beware theSuperpower Syndrome,” New York Times, April 25, 1994, p. A15;Richard K. Betts, “The Delusion of Impartial Intervention,” ForeignAffairs, November/December 1994, pp. 20-33.

10. Report of the Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger to theCongress, Washington, DC, February 5, 1986, p. 81.

11. Kissinger, p. 658.

12. Ibid., p. 632.

13. Stephen Ambrose writes that Eisenhower “set about buildingthe support he would need to withstand the strident demands forintervention that he knew would come when Dien Bien Phu fell. He didso by putting conditions on American involvement. They weredeliberately created to be impossible of fulfillment . . . .” Ambrose,Eisenhower the President, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984, p. 177.

14. Report of the Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger to theCongress, Washington, DC, February 1, 1984, pp. 17-26.

15. Caspar W. Weinberger, “U.S. Defense Strategy,” ForeignAffairs, Vol. LXIV, Spring 1986, pp. 676-690.

16. George P. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretaryof State, New York: Scribner’s, 1993, p. 329.

17. John Mueller, War, Presidents, and Public Opinion, New York:Wiley, 1973.

18. See “Ladenese Epistle: Declaration of War,” Washington PostOnline, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4342-2001Sep21.html.

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19. For a discussion of rational risk aversion that can lead tosuboptimal results, see Douglas J. Macdonald, “Falling Dominoes andSystem Dynamics: A Risk Aversion Perspective,” Security Studies, Vol.3, Winter 1993/1994, pp. 225-258. See also Dominoes and Bandwagons:Strategic Beliefs and Great Power Competition in the EurasianRimland, Robert Jervis and Jack Snyder, eds., New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1991.

20. Richard Holbrooke, To End a War, New York: Random House,1998, pp. 65-68.

21. Powell’s “translation” of the state notion of using the Marines asan “interpositional force” was that “the Marines were to remain betweentwo powder kegs, the Lebanese army and Syrian-backed Shiite unitsfighting it out in the Shouf Mountains.” Colin L. Powell with Joseph E.Persico, My American Journey, New York: Random House, 1995, p. 291.

22. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, n. 16, p. 232.

23. One was Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon’s unwise attemptto negotiate an accord with a weak president-to-be, Amin Gemayel, andwithout the knowledge of the United States. Another was what Shultzcalled a “missed moment,” in which the United States failed to forceIsraeli and Syrian withdrawal just after the massacres at Sabra andShatila. A third was the terrorist bombing. Shultz also claims that “ourmilitary arm was tied behind our back, by our own leaders. Beginningwith the first deployment of the multinational force (MNF)—thePentagon restricted our Marines to a passive, tentative, anddangerously inward-looking role in Beirut. Assad and others in theregion could see that.” Shultz concluded that the U.S. pullout signaled tothe world that terrorism worked. He wanted to threaten and, ifnecessary, use force against terrorists where they trained. “But CapWeinberger and the Joint Chiefs raised question after question. Theywould not move. And the President would not move without them.” VicePresident Bush agreed. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, pp. 233, 648.

24. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret,eds. and trans., Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989, especiallyp. 606.

25. On the Bosnian case, see James Gow, Triumph of the Lack ofWill: International Diplomacy and the Yugoslav War, New York:Columbia University Press, 1997.

26. Richard Nixon, No More Vietnams, New York: Avon Books, 1985,p. 224.

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27. Second Annual Report of the Army After Next Project,Headquarters, United States Army Training and Doctrine Command,Fort Monroe, VA, December 7, 1998, p. 5.

28. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, p. 648.

29. Ibid., pp. 199, 204, 326-329.

30. Ibid., p. 650.

31. See, e.g., Anthony Lewis, “Shultz on Bosnia,” New York Times,February 14, 1994, p. 17; Margaret Thatcher and George Shultz, “Whatthe West Must Do in Bosnia,” Wall Street Journal, September 2, 1993, p.12.

32. George P. Shultz, “New Realities and New Ways of Thinking,”Foreign Affairs, Vol. 63, Spring 1985, pp. 705-721; and George P. Shultz,“The Ethics of Power,” Department of State Bulletin, February 1985, pp.1-2.

33. George P. Shultz, “Low-Intensity Warfare: The Challenge ofAmbiguity,” Department of State, Current Policy, No. 783, January1986.

34. For the quotations, see Powell, p. 576; and Andrew J. Bacevichand Lawrence F. Kaplan, “Battle Wary: America’s Flawed New MilitaryDoctrine,” New Republic, May 25, 1998, p. 19. Albright remained aproponent of an activist posture within the administration. See alsoSteven Erlanger, “Albright Sees an Ambitious World Mission for U.S.”New York Times, June 6, 1997, p. 8.

35. See Tony Smith, “In Defense of Intervention,” Foreign Affairs,November/December 1994; Albert Wohlstetter, “Alternatives toNegotiating Genocide,” Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1995, p. 14; StanleyR. Sloan, “From U.S. Deterrence to Self-Deterrence,” The ChristianScience Monitor, May 3, 1994, p. 19; Sloan, “The United States and theUse of Force in the Post-Cold War World: Away from Self-Deterrence?”Congressional Research Service, January 6, 1997.

36. George Bush, Center for the Study of the Presidency,“Presidential Decisionmaking and U.S. Interventions,” BushPresidential Library, Texas A&M University, October 24, 1999.

37. On Desert Fox, see http://www.time.com/time/daily/special/iraq/index.html; on the Afghan and Sudan operations, see thecomments of Peter Feaver and Christopher Gelpi athttp://www.dukenews.duke.edu/World/GELPE.HTM. See alsoChristopher Gelpi, “Democratic Diversions: Governmental Structureand the Externalization of Domestic Conflict,” The Journal of ConflictResolution, Vol. 41, April 1997, pp. 255-282.

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38. See “Inspector General’s Survey of the Cuban Operation andAssociated Documents,” obtained by the National Security Archivethrough the Freedom of Information Act, declassified 1997, athttp://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/ciacase/EXF.pdf.

39. James Risen, “To Bomb Sudan Plan, or Not,” New York Times,October 27, 1999, p. 1.

40. John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1982, especially chapters 7-8.

41. Secretary of Defense Cohen and CJCS General Sheltonexplained U.S. planning thus:

Diplomacy and deterrence having failed, we knew thatthe use of military force could not stop Milosevic’s attackon Kosovar civilians, which had been planned in advanceand already was in the process of being carried out. Thespecific military objectives we set were to attack hisability to wage combat operations in the future againsteither Kosovo or Serbia’s neighbors. By weakening hisability to wage combat operations, we were creating thepossibility that the military efforts of the KosovarAlbanians, which were likely to grow in intensity as aresult of Milosevic’s atrocities in Kosovo, might be a morecredible challenge to Serb armed forces. . . .[W]edetermined that Milosevic would pay a steep price for hisaggression and that his decade-long pattern of warfarewould be undermined.

They explain further that although some individuals expected a shortwar, allies were warned that it could take weeks or months. “Allianceleaders agreed in advance that if the initial strikes did not attainNATO’s goals, NATO would have to persist and indeed expand its aircampaign.” Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen and General HenryH. Shelton, “Joint Statement on the Kosovo After Action Review,” U.S.Department of Defense News Release, October 14, 1999. In WagingModern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat, Public Affairs,2001, General (Ret.) Wesley Clark argues that the Secretary of Defenseand most of his political superiors held overly optimistic viewsconcerning the efficacy of the air campaign and risked much by notmoving ahead with ground option planning, which was based on theApaches. See Chapter 11, “The Ground Option.”

42. See Steven Pelletiere, “Landpower and Dual Containment:Rethinking America’s Policy in the Gulf," Carlisle Barracks, PA:Strategic Studies Institute, November 1999.

43. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, pp. 332-34.

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44. With regard to Serbian aggression in Bosnia, Clinton, thecandidate, said, “I would begin with air power against the Serbs to try torestore the basic conditions of humanity.” Janathan Rauch, “HowKosovo Buried the Bush Doctrine,” National Journal, October 31, 1998,pp. 2540-2541.

45. “The Use and Usefulness of Military Forces in the Post-ColdWar, Post-Soviet World,” Address by Congressman Les Aspin,Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, to the JewishInstitute for National Security Affairs, September 21, 1992.

46. See Haass, Intervention, p. 17.

47. See Steven Erlanger, “Albright Sees an Ambitious WorldMission for U.S.” New York Times, June 6, 1997, p. 8.

48. Ivo Daalder, “Knowing When to Say No: The Development ofU.S. Policy for Peacekeeping,” in UN Peacekeeping, American Policy,and the Uncivil Wars of the 1990s, William J. Durch, ed., New York: St.Martin’s, 1996, pp. 35-67.

49. William J. Perry, Report of the Secretary of Defense to thePresident and the Congress, February 1995, pp. 16-17.

50. A National Security Strategy for a New Century, The WhiteHouse, December 1999, pp. 19-20. See also A National Security Strategyof Engagement and Enlargement, The White House, July 1994, p. 10.

51. National Security Strategy of the United States, The WhiteHouse, December 1999, e.g., pp. 26-27.

52. Anthony Lake, “Defining Missions, Setting Deadlines: MeetingNew Security Challenges in the Post-Cold War World,” speech at GeorgeWashington University, Washington, DC, March 6, 1996, in JohnHillen, “American Military Intervention: A User’s Guide,” a HeritageFoundation Backgrounder, May 2, 1996, p. 7.

53. Anthony Lake, “Defining Missions, Setting Deadlines: MeetingNew Security Challenges in the Post-Cold War World,” Remarksdelivered at George Washington University, March 6, 1996, in Haass,rev. ed., pp. 247-258, especially 252.

54. William J. Perry, “The Rule of Commensurate Military Force,”based on the Forestall Lecture, Foreign Affairs Conference, U.S. NavalAcademy, Annapolis, MD, April 18, 1995, and reported in Defense, No. 3,1995, pp. 2-7, 5-6.

55. Ibid., pp. 6-7.

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56. Robert A. Manning, “The Clinton Doctrine: More Spin thanReality,” Los Angeles Times, September 5, 1999, at http://ebird.dtic.mil/Sept1999/e19990907clinton.htm, retrieved on September 7, 1999.

57. This is a somewhat less critical view of the Clintonadministration’s approach to using force than that offered, for example,by Andrew Bacevich and Lawrence Kaplan. They argue that theadministration espoused a new, fatally flawed military doctrine withfour principles: technology will triumph; the threat of force will bringvictory; force can be used precisely; and ground forces are a last resort. Iargue that the administration lacked such a clear philosophy or set ofbeliefs about using force, and allowed estimates of costs—political andotherwise—to determine its strategy rather than exerting greaterleadership to shape public views on the national interest and costs. SeeBacevich and Kaplan, n. 34. For a powerful critique of the Clintonapproach, see Andrew J. Bacevich, “Policing Utopia: The MilitaryImperatives of Globalization,” The National Interest, No. 56, Summer1999, pp. 5-13.

58. Powell, My American Journey, p. 559.

59. Colin L. Powell, “Why Generals Get Nervous,” New York Times,October 8, 1992, p. A35.

60. Colin L. Powell, “U.S. Forces: Challenges Ahead,” ForeignAffairs, Winter 1992/1993, pp. 36-41, 32-45.

61. Powell, My American Journey, p. 434.

62. Powell noted in his memoirs that in 1984 he disagreed withWeinberger’s stating criteria so clearly and unambiguously. See p. 303.

63. Powell, “U.S. Forces,” p. 38.

64. Ibid., p. 40.

65. For a recent invocation of the popular version of the PowellDoctrine, see Larry Korb, “Force is the Issue,” Government Executive,January 2000, p. 31. Prior to assuming office as Secretary of State,Powell himself continued to warn against humanitarian interventions.See “Powell: U.S. Power Alone Cannot Prevent Genocide,” HoustonChronicle, February 15, 2000, p. 13.

66. President George Bush, “Remarks at the United States MilitaryAcademy,” in Haass, rev. ed., Appendix F, pp. 223-231.

67. Ibid.

68. Powell, “Why Generals Get Nervous.”

69. Bush, remarks at U.S. Miliary Academy.

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70. Eliot Cohen, contribution to “American Power—For What?” inCommentary, n. 1.

71. Haass, rev. ed., see chapters 4-5.

72. Tom Bowman, “Military, Politicians Criticized for Insisting onZero Casualties,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 3, 2000. See also “ArmyProfessionalism, the Military Ethic, and Officership in the 21stCentury,” by Dr. Don M. Snider, Major John A. Nagl, and Major TonyPfaff, Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, December1999.

73. Report of the Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger to theCongress, February 5, 1986, p. 79.

74. See Russell Weigley, “The Soldier, the Statesman, and theMilitary Historian,” First Annual George C. Marshall MemorialLecture in Military History, January 9, 1999, American HistoricalAssociation Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, cited in The Journal ofMilitary History, No. 63, October 1999, pp. 807-822; Michael R. Gordon,“Powell Delivers a Resounding No on Using Limited Force in Bosnia,”New York Times, September 28, 1992, pp. A-1, A-5.

75. Samuel Huntington, “The Erosion of American NationalInterests,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 1997, pp. 28-49.

76. Richard K. Betts, “The New Threat of Mass Destruction,”Foreign Affairs, Vol. 77, No. 1, January/February 1998, pp. 26-41.

77. Ivan Eland, “Tilting at Windmills: Post-Cold War MilitaryThreats to U.S. Security,” Policy Analysis, No. 332, February 8, 1999.See also his “Does U.S. Intervention Overseas Breed Terrorism?” CatoForeign Policy Briefing No. 50, December 17, 1998.

78. Ronald Steele, “Beware the Superpower Syndrome, New YorkTimes, April 25, 1994, p. A11.

79. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “Redefining the National Interest,” ForeignAffairs, July/August 1999, pp. 22-35. For an in-depth response, seeChester Crocker, “A Poor Case for Quitting: Mistaking Incompetence forInterventionism,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2000, pp.183-186.

80. Edward Luttwak, “Give War a Chance,” Foreign Affairs,July/August 1999, pp. 36-44. For a helpful response, see Sergio Vieira deMello, “Enough is Enough,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2000,pp. 187-189.

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81. American Public Opinion and U.S. Foreign Policy, 1999, John E.Rielly, ed., Chicago CFR, p. 4, http://www.ccfr.org/publications/opinion/opinion.htm.

82. Steven Kull, “Americans on U.N. Peacekeeping: A Study ofPublic Attitudes,” Program on International Policy Attitudes,University of Maryland, April 27, 1995, “Summary Findings.”

83. Richard Sobel, “The Polls—Trends: United States Interventionin Bosnia,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 62, No. 2, Summer 1998, pp.250-278.

84. Kull, “Americans on U.N. Peacekeeping.” The followingdiscussion is based upon this study and on Steven Kull and ClayRamsay, “Americans Support U.N. Peacekeeping, with Conditions,”Foreign Service Journal, December 1998, pp. 34-40.

85. Ibid.

86. Steven Kull, cited in Michael P. Noonan, Rapporteur, “TheQuestion of Humanitarian Intervention: A Conference Report,” ForeignPolicy Research Institute WIRE, Vol. 9, No. 5, June 2001, p. 2.

87. Kull, “Americans on U.N. Peacekeeping.” The discussion isbased upon this study (n.13); and on Kull and Ramsay, “AmericansSupport U.N. Peacekeeping, with Conditions.”

88. Jonathan Mermin, “Television News and AmericanIntervention in Somalia: The Myth of a Media-Driven Foreign Policy,”Political Science Quarterly, Fall 1997, Vol. 112, pp. 385-403.

89. For a sophisticated argument on how the United States andChina used the threat of the other for domestic purposes, see TomChristenson, Useful Adversaries: Grand Strategy, DomesticMobilization, and Sino-American Conflict, 1947-1958, Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1996.

90. As a candidate, George W. Bush stated repeatedly that theUnited States could not practice pure realpolitik at the expense of itsmoral values: “And when American soldiers hugged the survivors of thedeath camps and shared their tears and welcomed them back from anightmare world, our country was confirmed in its calling.” See MichaelIgnatieff, “The Next President’s Duty to Intervene.” New York Times,February 13, 2000, p. 17.

91. Michael O’Hanlon, Saving Lives with Force, p. 4, notes thenumber of conflicts and cites International Negotiation Network, Stateof World Conflict Report 1994-1995, Atlanta, GA: Carter Center, 1995,pp. 4, 60.

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92. Edwin Mansfield, Principles of Macroeconomics, seventh ed.,New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1992, p. 11.

93. In “American Power—For What?" Commentary, n. 1.

94. “Bush: U.S. Will be ‘Sparing’ on Overseas Commitments,”American Forces Information Service, February 13, 2001.

95. Thomas E. Ricks, “Possible Military Overhaul Outlined:Personnel Policy May Be Targeted,” Washington Post, May 18, 2001, p.A-1.

96. Jane Perlez, “A Steady Advocate of American Caution, PowellFaces a Changing World,” New York Times, December 17, 2000, p. 49.

97. Ibid.

98. Clinton recalls that Powell recommended the mission despite a50-50 chance of success. Powell says he was opposed to that and manyrelated missions, such as disarming the warlords and nation-building.See Ibid.

99. Ralph Peters, cited in “The Question of HumanitarianIntervention: A Conference Report,” n. 85, p. 6.

100. Haass and O’Hanlon provide additional principles and lessons.Haass, e.g., argues that: interests only provide general guidelines;“neither victory nor an exit date should be prerequisites” for using force;“popular and congressional support are (sic) desirable but notnecessary” for intervention; the early use of force is preferable to thelater use; and overwhelming force is better than gradualism.Intervention, rev. ed., chapters 4-5. O’Hanlon draws convincingconclusions regarding force structures for different kinds of missions,and argues that the United States should not intervene unless certainthresholds of violence are crossed; interventions should not risk widerconflicts; policymakers should be skeptical about their ability toinfluence the domestic politics of some states; interventions “should notseek to defeat very strong armies supported by mass movements"; andindigenous security forces are necessary for successful interventions inpopulous nations, among other points. (See Saving Lives with Force, n.2, especially chapters 2-3.)

101. Powell, “U.S. Forces,” p. 40.

102. John Lewis Gaddis, “Drawing Lines: The Defensive PerimeterStrategy in East Asia, 1947-1951,” The Long Peace, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1987, chapter 4.

103. Dean Acheson, Present At the Creation: My Years in the StateDepartment, New York: Norton, 1969, p. 405.

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104. According to one senior policymaker, “we had photos comingfrom two directions. The difference was that in Somalia we could dosomething about it.” Sidney Blumenthal, “Why are we in Somalia?” TheNew Yorker, October 25, 1993, p. 48.

105. See “Roadmap for National Security: Imperative for Change,”Phase III Report of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21stCentury, February 15, 2001, “Major Themes and Implications,” and p.49.

106. The early theoretical arguments for this are found in JohanGaltung, “On the effects of Economic Sanctions, with Examples from theCase of Rhodesia,” World Politics, No. 19, April 1967, pp. 378-416; andLewis Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict, Glencoe, IL: Free Press,1956.

107. Mueller, n. 18. On World War II, see Richard Polenberg, OneNation Divisible: Class, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States since1938, New York: Viking Press, 1980.

108. Steven Kull, “Americans on U.N. Peacekeeping: A Study ofPublic Attitudes,” Program on International Policy Attitudes,University of Maryland, April 27, 1995; Rand Research Brief, “PublicSupport for U.S. Military Operations,” Santa Monica, CA: March 1996.

109. Eric V. Larson, Casualties and Consensus: The Historical Roleof Casualties in Domestic Support for U.S. Military Operations," Rand,1996.

110. Steven Kull, “What the Public Knows that WashingtonDoesn’t,” Foreign Policy, No. 101, Winter 1995-96, pp. 102-115; Kull andRamsay, “Americans Support U.N. Peacekeeping, with Conditions,”Kull, “Americans on U.N. Peacekeeping: A Study of Public Attitudes,”“Summary Findings." See also Richard Sobel, “The Polls—Trends:United States Intervention in Bosnia,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol.62, No. 2, Summer 1998, pp. 250-278.

111. James H. Anderson, “The Low Casualty Dogma,” Semper Fi,Marine Corps Commemorative Booklet 2000, p. 178.

112. Tom Bowman, “Cost of War: A New Accounting,” BaltimoreSun, March 22, 2000.

113. Peter Fever and Christopher Gelpi, “How Many Deaths areAcceptable? A Surprising Answer,” Washington Post, November 7,1999, p. 83.

114. Richard L. Berke and Janet Elder, “Poll Finds Support for Warand Fear on Economy,” New York Times, September 25, 2001, p. A1, B6.

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115. See, for example, Brian McGrory, Michael Kranish, “AmericaPrepares/Rebuilding; Allies, Critics Say Clinton Fell Short in TerrorFight,” Boston Globe September 21, 2001, p. A1.

116. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, p. 650.

117. For arguments that earlier use of force would have saved livesand resources in Bosnia, see Gow, Lack of Will, n. 25; Haass,Intervention, pp. 113-114.

118. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, p. 650.

119. Weinberger speech, see n. 2.

120. John Garofano and Chris Seiple, “The Gulf War as a Point ofDeparture,” unpublished manuscript, March 2001. I am indebted toChris Seiple for the phrase.

121. Paul Kennedy, Grand Strategies in War and Peace, NewHaven: Yale University Press, 1991, p. 5.

122. See Chris Seiple, The U.S. Military/NGO Relationship inHumanitarian Interventions, Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. ArmyPeacekeeping Institute/Center for Strategic Leadership, 1996.

123. See John Garofano, “Deciding on Military Intervention: Whatis the Role of Senior Military Leaders?” Naval War College Review, No.53, Spring 2000, pp. 40-64.

124. For the argument that Operation JUST CAUSE provides ablueprint for intervention due to bold planning and the goal of decisivestrategic outcomes, see Tom Donnelly, “Lessons Unlearned: AComparison of Three American Wars,” The National Interest, No. 60,Summer 2000, pp. 76-82. For the argument that victory was due to otherfactors, see the exchange with the author in the Fall 2000 issue of TheNational Interest. On the widespread misinterpretations of the victoriesin Panama and the Gulf and for an argument that decisive force andtotal victory should not be prerequisites for the use of force, see F. G.Hoffman, Decisive Force: The New American Way of War, Westport, CT:Praeger, 1996.

125. For more on this phenomenon and a number of historical casestudies, see Irving Janis, Groupthink: Psychological Studies of PolicyDecisions and Fiascoes, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982, 2nd ed.; andRichard Ned Lebow, Between Peace and War, Baltimore: Johns HopkinsUniversity, 1981.

126. See n. 94.

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127. Basil Liddell-Hart, Strategy, New York: New AmericanLibrary, 1974, p. 322.

128. John Mueller argues that the American public showed a greatimmunity to withdrawing support due to the killing of Iraqis. SeeMueller, Policy and Opinion in the Gulf War, Chicago: University ofChicago Press, pp. 134-135.

129. William Gregor, “Toward a Revolution in Civil-MilitaryAffairs: Understanding the United States Military in the Post Cold WarWorld,” Working Paper No. 6, August 1996, U.S.-Post Cold WarCivil-Military Relations, Olin Institute, Harvard University, at:http://www-vdc.fas.harvard.edu/cfia//olin/pubs/no6.htm.

130. See Robert H. Dorff, “The Future of Peace Support Operations,”Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 9, No. 1, Spring 1998, pp. 160-178.Reprinted in Max Manwaring and John Fishel, eds. TowardResponsibility in the New World Disorder: Challenges and Lessons ofPeace Operations, London: Frank Cass Publishers, 1998, pp. 160-178.

131. For a concise summary of a vast amount of the Vietnamliterature, see Jeffrey Record, The Wrong War: Why We Lost in Vietnam,Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998.

132. Garofano, n. 134.

133. It should be noted that I attribute shortcomings in strategicdecisionmaking with regard to the use of force to the unavailability ofinformation and relevant concepts, rather than to the inability ofleaders to process or understand them. For arguments emphasizingnonrational sources of decisions, see Irving Janis, Groupthink andLebow, Between Peace and War, both n. 104; Robert Jervis, Perceptionand Misperception in International Politics, Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1976. Alexander George, PresidentialDecisionmaking in Foreign Policy: The Effective Use of Information andAdvice, Westview, 1980, deals with both rational and nonrationalsources of low-quality decision processes.

134. For an argument about the early sources of this blurring, seeDouglas T. Stuart, “National Interest and National Security,”Perspectives of the Carnegie Council on Ethics, Fall 1999.

135. Barbara Levitt and James G. March, “OrganizationalLearning,” Annual Review of Sociology, No. 14, 1988, pp. 319-340,especially 322.

136. Eliot A. Cohen and John Gooch, Military Misfortunes: TheAnatomy of Failure in War, New York: The Free Press, 1990, p. 195.

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137. Amy B. Zegart, Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA,JCS, and NSC, Stanford University Press, 1999, contains an excellentdiscussion of the policy and implementation problems caused bymaladapted institutions. See also Douglas T. Stuart, “Present at theLegislation: The 1947 National Security Act” in Organizing for NationalSecurity, Stuart, ed., Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute,November 2000, pp. 5-24.

138. National Security Strategy of the United States, pp. 26-27.

139. General Anthony C. Zinni, U.S. Marine Corps, “ACommander’s Reflections,” Proceedings , March 2000, athttp://www.usni.org/Proceedings/Articles00/prozinni.htm. See alsohis report before the Army Science Board, March 28, 2000, whichclaimed the United States will continue to be involved in operationsother than war, which he labeled “reluctant bleeding.”

140. Garofano, n. 113, and remarks at the Annual StrategyConference of the U.S. Army War College, April 8, 1999. See also JohnGarofano, “Ensuring Better Decisions on Using Force,” Passing theTorch: Recommendations to the Next President on Emerging NationalSecurity Issues, Council on Emerging National Security Affairs,November 2000, pp. 88-92.

141. The U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Centuryrecommends inclusion of Treasury on the NSC, as well as a majorexpansion in the budget and the planning and strategy roles of State.

142. See Douglas T. Stuart, “National Interest and NationalSecurity,” n. 144.

143. Thom Shanker, “Defense Chief will Propose Military Change inCourse,” New York Times, June 15, 2001, at http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/15/national/15MILI.html?searchpv=day03.

144. Jim Garamone, “Rumsfeld Review Takes Advantage of UniqueMoment in History,” American Forces Press Service athttp://www.defenselink.mil/news/May2001/n05312001_200105311.html.

145. General Eric Shinseki, Statement before AirlandSubcommittee, Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, 2ndsession, 106th Cong., “On the Army Transformation,” March 8, 2000.

146. Steven Metz, “Future of Land Warfare,” unpublishedmanuscript, June 2001.

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U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General Robert R. Ivany

Commandant

*****

STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

Director

Professor Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr.

Director of Research

Dr. Steven Metz

Author

Dr. John Garofano

Director of Publications

Ms. Marianne P. Cowling

Publications Assistant

Ms. Rita A. Rummel

*****

Composition

Ms. Kimberly A. Rockwell